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If sports reflects society, then nothing better illustrates the nation’s current condition than the performance and behavior of the United States’ team during the Women’s World Cup, which ended Sunday, and the overwhelming reaction to unexpected elimination.
For Americans, the tournament and its aftermath featured the toxic combination of “woke” politics, narcissism, entitlement, pervasive popular fatigue with all of the above and the accompanying politicized schadenfreude.
Since the Women’s World Cup began in 1991, the United States has dominated women’s soccer. The Americans won four championships — more than any other nation — finished second once and placed third three times in the eight previous tournaments. This year, the United States hoped to become the first squad — male or female — to win three successive World Cups.
But after winning only one of three group games and scoring just four goals in the process, the Americans lost to Sweden on penalty kicks in the Round of 16 on Aug. 6 after 120 scoreless minutes of regulation and extra time, soccer’s term for overtime.
Some soccer analysts attributed the defeat to the Americans’ inability to maintain possession or generate offensive creativity, let alone score. Some criticized coach Vlatko Andonovski’s unwillingness to change tactics or lineups. Some cited a roster that combined spent veterans with inexperienced young players.
But Carli Lloyd, a midfielder who won two Women’s World Cups and two Olympic gold medals for the United States, noticed a more disturbing cause.
“It is no longer we want to win because we want to win,” said Lloyd, whose 134 career goals ranks fourth internationally. “No, we want everything that comes with winning, and we think we can just roll out and win games. That’s not the case, and teams see that. They see the arrogance in the U.S. and see that they’re not this unstoppable team. They see that (the United States is) able to be broken down and beaten.”
Lloyd, working for Fox Sports as a commentator, used the Americans’ behavior after ending group play with a scoreless tie against Portugal to prove her point.
Several players danced, sang and took selfies with adoring fans, as Fox Sports showed. But if a late shot from Portugal’s Ana Capeta found the net rather than a goal post, the Americans would have been eliminated in group play for the first time.
“There’s a difference between being respectful of the fans and saying hello to your family, but to be dancing, to be smiling?” Lloyd asked. “I’ve never witnessed something like that. You’re lucky not to be going home right now.
“There’s too many distractions. There’s too much emphasis on ‘How many followers do I have?’ or doing photoshoots and doing this and doing that.”
The frivolity included midfielder Megan Rapinoe, one of the best players in American soccer history yet the dominant factor in alienating the fan base by turning the team into her own political toy.
In 2016, Rapinoe joined former quarterback Colin Kaepernick and began kneeling during the national anthem as a form of protest. She soon broke protocol by refusing to sing the anthem, and convinced teammates to join her. As a result, players refused either to sing or put their hands over their hearts as the anthem played at the Women’s World Cup or the Olympics. In other competitions, players wore shirts or warm-up jackets emblazoned with “Black Lives Matter.”
One former teammate last year said Rapinoe would intimidate anybody who disagreed.
“I’ve seen Megan Rapinoe almost bully players into kneeling because she really wants to stand up for something in her particular way,” said goalkeeper Hope Solo, who amassed a world-record 102 shutouts. “But it’s our right as Americans to do it whatever way we’re comfortable with, and I think that’s really hard being on the main stage right now with so many political issues for athletes.”
Rapinoe embraced and promoted all the “woke” causes, despite Americans’ growing contempt for them and their imposition. She openly opposed President Donald Trump and called herself a “walking protest” of his policies. A Lesbian, Rapinoe openly advocates gender ideology, including the inclusion of transgender athletes in women’s sports. In the process, Rapinoe demonstrated contempt for parents concerned about the consequences to their daughters:
“I would also encourage everyone out there who is afraid someone’s going to have an unfair advantage over their kid to really take a step back and think what are we actually talking about here. We’re talking about people’s lives. I’m sorry, your kid’s high school volleyball team just isn’t that important. It’s not more important than any one kid’s life.”
By becoming a “woke” activist, Rapinoe sabotaged team morale.
“The culture has changed,” said Lloyd, the only American to stand for the anthem before the bronze-medal game at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics. “It was really tough and challenging to be playing these last several years. I wanted to win and I wanted to help the team, but the culture within the team was the worst I’ve ever seen. To be quite honest, I hated it.”
Solo agreed.
“Every time I left for camp, I didn’t want to go,” she said last year. “I just wanted to be a professional athlete. I wanted to be cutthroat and I wanted to win. But you have to play the political game and the social game sometimes. I don’t think people really understand how difficult emotionally and mentally that is.”
Rapinoe also destroyed the team’s status as one of the most respected and admired groups of athletes in the country. These fans’ comments from the team’s victory parade in New York in 2019, as FrontPage Magazine reported at the time, demonstrate the disillusionment:
“I despise these women. I cheered for Mia Hamm and her team the first time the USA had a competitive women’s team in the World Cup, but not this team. … Not one of these players has said THANK YOU to the U.S. taxpayers who subsidized their little fantasy lives. Instead, they step all over our Flag, insult our Commander-in-Chief, and refuse to respect our National Anthem. Karma is going to come down hard on these people.”
“Our family have been big fans. It was a slow tumble to my indifference. Yesterday at parade didn’t help. My daughter attended 2 US women’s games this year…and had four US jerseys and other natl (sic) team. Instead of me taking her to NWSL games, we will be avoiding all women’s soccer, at least until things change.”
The NWSL is the National Women’s Soccer League, which means that Rapinoe’s uncompromising politics could endanger the growth of professional women’s soccer. The next comment succinctly describes the level of popular estrangement.
“I don’t like them because they clearly wouldn’t like me, either. They’re not the U.S. National Team because they hate what half the U.S stands for. They’re the Democratic Party National Team.”
No wonder that after the United States’ defeat, conservatives took to social media and online outlets to express their utter joy at seeing the team lose and seeing Rapinoe embarrassed by badly missing her penalty kick.
“Americans would’ve liked to pull for this team,” a fan calling himself “superwolf” said. “But every time that we tried to embrace them, they spit back in our faces. That said, I am so glad they lost & even happier that she lost it for them.”
A commentator named “Dump the Uniparty” defended Americans rooting for Sweden:
“They weren’t rooting against the US. They were rooting against that collection of reprobates representing the US. Wearing the nation’s uniform is an honor. If you cannot appreciate that — or refuse to acknowledge it — then you shouldn’t get the privilege. Rapinoe insulted the nation’s backbone. Those who comprise it have every right to rejoice in her failure.”
Alexi Lalas, who represented the United States in two World Cups, engaged in uncharacteristic understatement when describing the polarized relationship between the team and its fellow countrymen for Fox Sports.
“This team runs some Americans the wrong way,” he said. “I just hope going forward that this team is able to unite so we can all celebrate the incredible players and the incredible things to come.”
Yet Lalas also issued a stern warning to the players.
“This #USWNT is polarizing,” he tweeted. “Politics, causes, stances, & behavior have made this team unlikeable to a portion of America. This team has built its brand and has derived its power from being the best/winning. If that goes away they risk becoming irrelevant.”
In other words, the most successful national team in American sports history risks becoming another casualty of the country’s accelerating cultural decline.
It was pure karma to see that ugly unthankful bitch choke.
Congratulations you chickenshit fool; you showed everyone what pure narcissistic bullshit looks like – almost beating out Hillary.
I hope your proud of yourself, because no one else is.
To parphrase her, she deserved this.
And a LOT worse. The damage she has done to REAL women’s sports in incalculable.
She must be a very unhappy and lonely woman. I would feel sorry for her if she had not done so much damage to so many other people, but now I feel that she deserves to suffer utter shunning because of it. If she was lonely before, she would surely be so then.
Arrogance seems to be the defining characteristic of the individuals running our institutions.
Actually, the greatest sports teams in American history were Tom Brady’s. Ten Superbowls and seven wins. The guy played until he was 44! He played and won for three decades.
And you’re right. Most Americans are ashamed of our women’s soccer team, not that anybody really watches soccer, especially not women’s soccer.
Women’s vollyball is good, though, and most of those chicks have nice asses.
Contrast those selfish ingrates with the 1980 USA hockey team & the “miracle” gold metal they won.
One team earned our respect & admiration.
One team earned our contempt. (Megan’s dad has to be wondering how 4 years of college could do so much damage.)
There’s a Kurt Russel movie entitled “Miracle” about that Olympics hockey victory. It’s great.
Whoever down voted me licks Rapeaho’s smelly beaver.
Nobody can doubt the New England Patriots’ or the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ excellence with Brady as quarterback. But neither team ever represented the nation in international competition against other nations. That was my point. As a program, the national women’s soccer team has accomplished a level of excellence unmatched by any other representing the United States, current political controversies notwithstanding. The Olympic hockey teams in 1980 and 1960 basically were outliers for their times, in which professional athletes supposedly were banned from the Games (We know the Soviets were de facto professionals).
Yes, that’s all true.
Brady is a sore point with me though, because so many losers here in the South Bay area hate him because he’s good looking and the best quarterback in history, but didn’t play for the 49ers.
Heck, I remember the handsome Bruce Jenner winning the decathalon and now he’s a tranny. I don’t understand the world anymore.
I watched the missed kick several times, and I, like any heterosexual, patriotic American, hate soccer.
To be fair, I don’t give a rat’s ass about any sports.
Football bends the knee & puts “hands up”.
Baseball celebrated trans-filth (fans didn’t).
Hockey did the same crap.
Basketball painted bullshit BLM on their court.
Many franchises are pussing out & changing their names – bending their knee to woke crybabies.
(I once worshipped the Dallas Cowboys. Jerry “That was then; This is now” Jones convinced me to hope they lose every game.)
College football is awful, and I blame the fans. Nearly all the top teams schedule none conference pushover nobodies. The stupid fans pay to watch those Sh!? shows. As the title of the article implies, sports is yet another example, of a country in decline.
Large numbers of Indians have come out and said they want the Cleveland team to be named “The Indians” again.
“The Guardians.” How lame is that?
I laughed when I saw it. I HATE that cunt.
“One former teammate last year said Rapinoe would intimidate anybody who disagreed.
“I’ve seen Megan Rapinoe almost bully players into kneeling because she really wants to stand up for something in her particular way,” said goalkeeper Hope Solo.”
Totalitarians only see themselves in the castle; they never see themselves as the bodies on the ash heap of history.
While I agree with your article in principle, it’s the generated, woke hopes of a national decline that this team represents. Were it otherwise, everyone would have been watching and mourned the loss. As it stood, most people I know cheered their loss and laughed at Rapinoe, not with her, with the bad kick.
Though she’s a liberal media darling whom they love, Rapinoe and her douche-canoe team are only reflective on a nation’s decline insofar as we’ve allowed the behavior. More “Bud Lighting” required. The only vote that seems to matter to these woke morons is the one we make with our dollars and our feet.
Of course patriots cheered the loss of that chickenshit gaggle of narcissists.
They were representing themselves & never gave a damn about America.
At least one can choose not to buy “Bud Lighting.” If you are a US women’s soccer fan – I am not – you didn’t have any say. Re the beer thing – tempest in tankard, IMO.
Ban the NFL!!!
We’re sick of the all the Blackies and their Black Anthem…
I WANT MICHAEL PHELPS TO GO TRANS! Yes, the Olympics would be changed forever.
Imagine if Michael is now Michelle and is on the women’s team and she convinces other relay teammates to do the same. Break every Women’s record! Yes, “USA! USA! USA!”
Then the next race, she goes back to Michael! “USA! USA! USA!”
Back and forth they/them go. GO FOR THE GOLD!
I will go to my grave with the the belief that the 2011 Women’s soccer team “GAVE” the Japanese women’s the Gold Medal in the Olympics that summer.
Why?
The Japanese people needed ‘ lift’ because of the massive earthquake at Fukushima in March. Find ANY videos of that game and study the attacks and ‘backing off’ when they had a clear opening on the goalie and missed shots a 10-year-old would make..
Then watch the reactions of our players during the shoot and tell me that they were truly frustrated that they missed their shot.
As far as I’m concerned and knowing ho she feels about my country who has given her so much, but not as much as SHE want, I strongly believe she INTENTIONALLY MISSED her shot as a big middle finger to all of us.
She should have asked the Vietnamese players what it’s like to live in a country that has a serious case of human rights violations and Christian persecution!
As somebody who has covered sports for most of my professional career (and as somebody who wrote the article on which you commented), here’s why I disagree:
1. Professional athletes have too much pride and work too hard to get where they are, especially on the international level — unless they’ve been bought off. And, yes, that has happened in soccer, with players and referees in the men’s game. That latter possibility is the only one that would explain your rationale. Same with Rapinoe’s missed penalty kick, especially since missing a penalty kick is the most embarrassing thing a soccer player can do.
2. As somebody who has no respect for Rapinoe, I don’t blame her for an entirely emotional reaction after missing her kick. People have different ways to cope with embarrassment, guilt, fear, anxiety and shame. For some people, laughter is one of them.
Rapinoe has given Americans a lot of legitimate reasons to criticize her. Let’s not make up reasons for the sake of showing contempt.
It is a sad commentary that Rapinoe and her ilk are too clueless to realize the reason the USWNT was so dominant was because things were so much better for women in the U.S. versus elsewhere.
That President Biden awarded Rapinoe with the Medal of Freedom is something the GOP should use in campaign ads. Show her kneeling down and include the commentary “this is who President Biden thinks deserves the Medal of Freedom.” Then show her missing the goal entirely on an important penalty kick and include the message “it is those who gave their lives defending our precious freedoms, including Rapinoe’s freedom of speech, who deserve the Medal of Freedom.”
Their arrogance is unprecedented as a national team. They have successfully ruined any further interest I may have had. I cheered their losses and continue to despise their behavior
If you hate America- Leave. Bunch of spoiled brats 🤪
It’s time for the U.S. Soccer Federation to move away from dreary, crime-infested, gang-infested Chicago.
Chronically clinically depressed, IMO.
Rape-a-ho is chronically ugly, too.
Rapinoe lost the game for her country by kicking the ball clear over the top AND COMING AWAY LAUGHING.
Her hair, formerly a louche light-purple pixie, showed up in Australasia as a much shorter ugly BLUE pudding-basin. If she is trying to be a fashion leader, she’s astray.
It’s the only team in American history that vast swathes of Americans wanted to see lose, just as much as this team wants America itself to lose.
Growing up skinny and small in the American west I learned very early how you deal with bullies like Rapinoe. You took them on head to head, nose to nose. If they whipped you—and often they did not—you kept at them until they gave up and began avoiding you. I was not the only kid raised that way. Nearly every kid who wasn’t a child of the well-to-do in town faced down the bullies. I don’t mean to say that all well-to-do kids were sissies. I knew a few who were good fighters in the ring, but they came from homes where they were kept inside after dark. I know because when we moved to town I rarely saw them outside after dark. Most of us poorer kids ran free.
I’d lay odds that the players Rapinoe influenced were all from that special class of children U.S. citizens are raising today—the children of children who were raised as special, and who were put in city leagues for sports where they learned and practiced this European (and foreign) sport of soccer. Then they went home when dark fell where dad and mom celebrated them. I don’t think Ms Kari Lloyd was one of those types of kids. Are these the children and the youth we must depend on to defend America and American values from our domestic and foreign totalitarians! Are they strong enough? I will give odds they aren’t.
Nothing could be clearer to me than her case of chronic clinical depression. Lots of those women are like that, I’ve observed.
A died in the wool Lesbian with purple hair wants actual men to complete in female Sports as that is her version of equality.
It does not get any more contradictory and insane than that.
I noticed its men that want to compete in female Sports but Ive yet to see females wanting to compete in male Sports… Weird that huh?.
i live in australia , formerly known as ” the lucky country ” we are now a province of china and you know where that is heading . i forced myself too watch the news coverage of a few games [ I’m not a soccer fan ] and was pleasantly surprised how amateurish and pedestrian it all was ” not really surprised ” similar to watching grass grow . yet they want wage parity and coverage the same as mens soccer . because it is all driven by the ” me too ” and the PC grievance brigade they will get it . one more reason to avoid the circus media coverage . now where did i put that ” its a mad, mad , mad, mad world . dvd . ?
It’s only women’s football. No-one cares.