This USWNT isn't your sister's juggernaut...

And who knows what that means for the future

Rarely do I write about sports as in-depth in this newsletter as I have chosen to do here, but I think the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team (USWNT) is a tad bit different within our sports lexicon. Every four years, they capture our imagination, dating back to that memorable 1999 team. Along the way, members of that team have been some of the strongest proponents for equal rights and racial justice. In a way, because they seemingly only get to play on the biggest stage every four years, their success has inspired countless others to push the needle forward in their endeavors. Conversely, their struggles are magnified as well. Heavy is the head that wears the crown.

When the full-time whistle blew in the USWNT final group stage match at this World Cup, a collective sigh of relief permeated wherever supporters were present. Minutes earlier, the two-time champions, seeking an unprecedented three-peat at this World Cup, were saved from crashing out of the tournament by the goalpost. As an Al Pacino character once famously said, the inches we need are everywhere. The U.S., to avoid an embarrassingly short stay at this World Cup, needed every inch of the post.

Tomorrow, the USWNT will embark on the knockout stages of this tournament, facing FIFA’s third-ranked Sweden in Melbourne, Australia. The match starts at 2 AM PT. I’ll be waking up for it, begrudgingly.

I only needed to watch the opening match of the United States World Cup to know this team shouldn’t be a favorite to win it all. In the first group stage match against Vietnam, they lacked cohesiveness at the back and struggled to finish chances. More of the same continued against the Netherlands in the second group match, when an angry tower of a header from Lindsey Horan salvaged a point that was a little less than deserved. Against Portugal the other night, one could argue with great fervor that the U.S. deserved to lose.

This is not the USWNT from 2019. Or 2015. And they are certainly not the powerhouse from 1999, the one that captured a nation’s attention and, arguably, set women’s sports up for so much of the growth and progress we’ve seen this century.

I won’t go as far as Carli Lloyd went in the post-game analysis, arguing that this version of the USWNT is too distracted by off-field matters. I think a small portion of that is unfair. The USWNT has been at the forefront of issues on equal pay, advocacy for Black lives, and fighting for justice for victims of abuse and harassment. If my team is going to be “distracted” by anything, that’s the kind of distraction you want. You can live with that. Women’s sports in America have a short but incredibly impactful history of moving conversations of equal justice forward. The WNBA, alongside this U.S. team, stands alone in those regards.

Yet Llyod isn’t completely off base in her criticism either, and I believe her comments following the match against Portugal were spot on. This team does feel different. They do feel a little entitled. They don’t seem to approach the big matches with the same sense of urgency or edge that the last two World Cup champions do. They look lost tactically, have zero cohesiveness in the first two thirds of the pitch, and, sans perhaps Namoi Girma at the back, have no one who could make a legitimate argument for inclusion in the Best XI at this World Cup.

There’s a dim chance all of this changes with one magnificent performance that this team, for all of its faults, is undoubtedly talented enough to do. Beat Sweden to advance to the Quaterfinal, and the tone around camp, and in the media, changes significantly. But that’s easier said than done. No one who has watched this team in the past few months can, in good faith, pick them to beat the Swedes.

Part of me wonders if this is good for the women’s game overall. While the media's belief that the U.S. has dominated women’s soccer for the better part of a decade is a bit overblown and misleading (they lost the World Cup in 2011, after all), they are the clear favorites. The U.S. has the best individual collection of talent of any nation playing women’s football. But that talent gap is ever decreasing, and many other countries seem more poised, hungry, and hell-bent on snatching the title of World’s greatest away from the U.S.

There’s a dichotomy of sorts here if you ask me. Maybe the growth of women’s football, and women’s sport in general, does mean that we’re not as dominant moving forward. Maybe having a group of women that make millions of dollars annually does make them a little more complacent. Maybe having a domestic women’s league where the second overall pick signs a million dollar extension shortly after turning pro does cause you to take your foot off the gas slightly. Isn’t this what they’ve been fighting for? Is complacency, though a sin between the lines, a confirmation that we’re moving in the right direction?

The most fair analysis of this World Cup so far, and this team at large, is to say that we’re in the midst of a transition. The last two Women’s World Cup champion squads were uniquely special, and this current team has its own superstars that I think will end up being just as good, if not better, than that previous crop. After winning it in 1999, the USWNT went 16 years before a World Cup triumph in 2015. The young superstars comprised of Girma, Sophia Smith, Alyssa Thompson, and Trinity Rodman, and even the injured Catalina Macario and Mallory Swanson, are a special group. But they haven’t been faced with overcoming the same challenges as the women whose footsteps they are following.

Believe it or not, I think the dominance of the USWNT in the last decade has contributed substantially to marginal progress we’ve made in terms of equal pay and victims’ rights and advocacy. This team is part of our cultural makeup. Its superstars, like Megan Rapinoe and Alex Morgan, are noticeable on the street, racking up billions of social media impressions and millions in advertising dollars. Finally, one can say that girl athletes in America can grow up with a dream to become moguls, and they don’t have to go overseas to do it.

In the end, that’s probably why the lackluster performances at this World Cup have been so excruciating to watch. In a time where our politics has only fractured even further and our cultural divisions loom ever larger, we’ve grown accustomed to there being one team that represents us all proudly, that wears the stars and stripes, and takes the pitch with relentless confidence and aggression, in true arrogant and individualistic American fashion.

Yet, for all of the progress made off the pitch, it’s the results on it that push movements forward. We know Rapinoe and Morgan for their activism, but without their athletic prowess, their names would likely ring hollow. Girma, Smith, Rodman, and company came of age during a time when that superiority seemed like a given. Now, in the aftermath of those athletic triumphs and the political and social success that came with it, the youngins get to reap all the benefits. Maybe crashing out of the World Cup will be the wake-up call they need.