“Well-behaved women seldom make history,” said the American historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich.
The US women’s soccer team are not well-behaved by conventional soccer standards. Instead of fulfilling Fifa president Gianni Infantino’s proclamation that women can be role models for male players, the US women have adopted the gamesmanship of men’s soccer – diving, embellishing, even parking the bus to protect leads.
But they are on the verge of making history with a fourth World Cup title that would pair neatly with their four Olympic gold medals. Off the field, they are once again demonstrating that their sport, at least at the international level, has mass appeal. And so the US women provide a test of an age-old question: does competition favor the arrogant?
Sports fans love underdogs. But the US women’s team are far from plucky battlers. The team combine the athleticism of past champions with ever-increasing tactical and technical sophistication, and the USA’s strutting reinforces that notion of invincibility. They’re the New York Yankees. Or the New England Patriots. Or Duke’s men’s basketball team. The difference is that they are bolder in embracing that status.
Americans love them for it, and for many the women’s team are simply above criticism. They can walk into a hotel to plan a trip to the final, even if England’s team happen to be staying there. They can celebrate when their stars pile on the goals against Thailand. They can whoop and holler in front of a defeated opponent. In the semi-final win against England, Alex Morgan went a step further. She managed to combine a shot at the critics with a taunt of her opponents, pretending to sip tea after scoring what proved to be the winning goal.
All of this behavior is enabled by a sometimes fawning fanbase and media. Social media has blurred the line between fans and journalists, yielding a younger generation of reporters and pundits that is, for better or worse, not steeped in the stodgy detachment of traditional news organizations.
Oddly, many of the people beatifying the star of the World Cup so far, Megan Rapinoe, weren’t paying attention for her most brilliant and important contribution on the field – a long, lofted cross to Abby Wambach that salvaged the USA’s 2011 World Cup hopes. At the time, as journalist Grant Wahl pointed out in a retrospective, the women’s soccer bandwagon was in serious need of repair.
And it’s the journalists who ignore professional women’s soccer but pop up for the World Cup and Olympics that help the team maintain an iron grip of the narrative. Willfully unaware of sports talk radio, let alone baseball’s brushback pitches and hockey’s code of policing by punching, they dismiss any criticism of the team’s celebrations as overreaction.
That narrative carries over to talk of the US women’s team’s pay, where an important conversation is infused with gratuitous shots at the men’s team. Instead of recognizing the progress that has been made – along with, to be sure, the progress that needs to be made – much of the public has taken to belittling the men’s team, who are not at fault for any pay disparity.
Of course, the US are not guaranteed Women’s World Cup and Olympic victories in the future. Even in 1999, the USA needed a quarter-final rally against Germany and a penalty save, one that would be erased by VAR in the current climate, against China to take top honors. Since then, the competition has only ramped up. While the USA have been the best team in this tournament, they needed a dubious penalty call to beat Spain and some bungling and bad luck on England’s part to advance to the final.
So perhaps playing with an arrogant edge that unhinges opponents and referees is necessary to maintain their advantage. In Once in a Lifetime, a documentary on the glory days of the New York Cosmos, striker Giorgio Chinaglia opines, “Listen, my friend – if you don’t have egos in life … especially in sports, you’re not going to go very far.” The US women’s team may inspire loathing overseas, but they also inspire fear.
And they exude ego in their unapologetic, aggressive approach not just to the games themselves but in their interviews and their marketing, where they’re portrayed as paragons of virtue and inspiration. The reality is more complex – and more interesting. Like all of us, they are imperfect individuals. Unlike the rest of us, they are nearly perfect on the field, and they are worth celebrating on those terms. This team are winners. They are often where they deserve to be. On a podium. Not a pedestal.
