- The US Women's National Team is looking to become the first team to win three straight World Cups.
- Some Americans are not fans, with one columnist calling the team "incredibly hard to root for."
The 2023 Women's World Cup is underway in Australia and New Zealand, and the US Women's National Team is on the cusp of history.
Megan Rapinoe, Alex Morgan, and a collection of young stars are looking to become the first-ever squad — on either the men's or women's side of the sport — to hoist three consecutive World Cups. And the odds suggest that the reigning champs twice over are the favorites to win a third Down Under.
Record numbers of fans stateside are tuning in to watch them do something that, to this point, has been impossible. But there's a contingent of naysayers rooting against the team representing the United States on the world's stage.
Phil Mushnik, a longtime sports columnist for the New York Post, devoted an entire essay to bashing The Stars and Stripes. Even the headline calls the USWNT "incredibly hard to root for."
Mushnik cites Rapinoe's supposed "excessive, me-first, all-about-me antics" as reason to root against his country, and seemingly crowns her the Queen of "Team Obnoxious." But the 38-year-old superstar — who earned Golden Ball and Golden Boot honors as the top player and goalscorer at the 2019 World Cup — has been far from self-centered in handling her relegation to reserve status in the fourth and final World Cup of her illustrious career.
Despite playing less than 30 minutes total through the USWNT's first two matches of the tournament, the blue-haired striker has publicly embraced her role as a leader from the bench.
"You can still play at an extremely high level; you can still keep a really high standard; you still have a lot to offer, both on the field and off the field," Rapinoe said of herself and her fellow substitutes on the USWNT World Cup roster during a press conference Sunday. "Maybe you're not going to be a starter playing 90 minutes or playing the bulk of the games. But you know, sometimes the veteran players, that's not what you need."
Rapinoe cited working hard in training sessions and offering halftime insights in the locker room as some of the "really rewarding" ways she tries to make "the whole team better" without subbing into the game. Excessive, me-first, all-about-me antics, indeed.
Mushnik further criticizes Rapinoe for celebrating after scoring a goal during the USWNT's infamous 13-0 victory against Thailand in the 2019 World Cup. Should Rapinoe and her teammates have let up against their opponents, spurning the spirit of competition during a tournament where goal differential could've very well proven decisive?
Or should she have simply subdued her joy at the peak of her professional career because the severely underfunded Thai side couldn't keep up? Surely it's not Rapinoe's fault that her opponent was so lacking in support from its federation and FIFA, soccer's notoriously corrupt governing body, that it instead relied on a private benefactor for financial backing.
For similar reasons, Morgan — arguably Rapinoe's most famous teammate — also faced Mushnik's condemnation. Though he issued no complaints about the countless ostentatious celebrations on display at the 2022 Men's World Cup in Qatar, Mushnik deemed Morgan's famed tea-sipping celebration after scoring against England "standard classlessness for a classless team."
Do you think he took issue with the Boston Tea Party, too?
Perhaps Mushnik expects a national team to fall in line and comprise players who merely shut up and dribble. Perhaps a team that refused to question the status quo or challenge authority when witnessing or experiencing injustice would avoid his billing of "creeps antithetical to sports."
But that's not this national team, and it never has been.
The USWNT players fight for what they deserve — even when they have to rebel against their own federation to make it happen — and they pave the way for women around the world to do the same. They speak up about what they believe in and help underrepresented and marginalized groups feel seen and heard.
They're "particularly and uniquely and very deeply American," as Rapinoe said amidst a feud with then-President Trump in 2019, and they're patriotic enough to criticize their country in hopes of making it stronger.
"Yes, we are a great country and there's many things that are so amazing, and I feel very fortunate to be in this country — I'd never be able to do this in a lot of other places," Rapinoe said at the time. "But also, that doesn't mean that we can't get better. And that doesn't mean we shouldn't always strive to be better."
They celebrate loudly, creatively, meaningfully, and unapologetically — just as the greats did more than two decades before them. They're ridiculously competitive, they welcome a challenge, and they thrive under pressure.
Who could possibly be easier to root for?