“The rest of the world is catching up.”
We’ve been hearing that or a version of it for a long, long time as regards to the crazy — and continuing — soccer dominance of the United States women’s national team.
It has been wishful thinking by the rest of the world.
England, Spain, Sweden, Germany, even France? Anybody? Some other nation’s team someday will topple America’s dominance. Right? There is an eventual expiration date on everything ...
... but the U.S. women keep saying not yet as they begin play Friday seeking a record fifth World Cup crown and a record third in a row. The first opponent is an epic underdog in Vietnam. The first match is in New Zealand, which is co-hosting this World Cup along with Australia.
Team USA’s four-team Group E with Netherlands, Portugal and Vietnam is stout, with the best combined ranking of any group. Netherlands is No. 9 in the world and lost to the U.S. in the 2019 World Cup final.
No matter. Bring it on. Team USA is the only nation to qualify for all nine Women’s World Cups that have been held and the only country to finish top three every time.
By contrast the U.S. men’s team is nowhere close to the same league in terms of international accomplishment, or, it could be argued, in popularity, though men’s soccer is bigger than the women’s game overall — as we are reminded in South Florida as Lionel Messi joining Inter Miami and MLS dominates the market and splashes across America.
No men’s team dominates internationally, though, like the U.S. women. Dynasty is an overused word in sports. But not here.
The U.S. is No. 1 in the FIFA Women’s world ranking and has been for five consecutive years, uninterrupted. Since the ranking began in 2003 the Americans have been No. 1 longer than every other nation combined and never lower than No. 2.
Now the U.S. staves off the rest of the world with a youth movement led by rising sensation Sophia Smith, the biggest star of the 14 USWNT players making their first World Cup appearance. America is about to fall in love with the team’s new scoring star as she takes that baton from Alex Morgan.
As Megan Rapinoe at 38 plays in her final World Cup before retiring — and this may be the last for the 34-year-old Morgan as well — the next wave is big and coming to shore.
Sending Rapinoe off into retirement as a world champion yet again would be fitting because her team, led by her, has done as much and stood as tall off the pitch as on it.
In 2022 current and former USWNT players including Rapinoe and Morgan won a $24 million settlement with the U.S. Soccer Federation that also ensured female national-team players would be paid equal to men — a first in the world for sports.
U.S. women’s soccer is a team, a brand, that has dominated on the field while also being an out-front champion for LGBTQ rights, equal pay and women’s sports. And they have led with outspokenness, with personality and without apology.
As a journalist I am a paid impartial observer, with any rooting interests I might have usually kept buttoned up. But when it comes to international competitions such as Olympic Games and World Cup, I am a proud citizen before I am a journalist.
So, yeah. Not only unabashedly but with pride, I’ll be rooting for the U.S. women. Against Vietnam. Against Portugal. Against Netherlands. Against the world.
May the queens’ glorious reign continue.
For the tradition of excellence that Rapinoe and Morgan have carried on and grown, for the hope that Sophia Smith and others carry forward, for the character and the beyond-sports world view to have led the fight for equal rights and equal pay, there isn’t a team in America or anywhere else that I cheer for like I do this one.
