During the 2023 World Cup, Tobin Heath is doing something a little different.
For the first time in more than a decade, she’ll be watching the competition from afar after winning World Cup titles with Team USA in 2015 and 2019. Heath hasn’t played in a game since undergoing knee surgery in September.
So instead, she and Christen Press — a fellow two-time World Cup champ recovering from a knee injury — will break it down on their new digital series, The RE—CAP Show, which is produced by the lifestyle brand RE—INC, founded by Heath, Press, Megan Rapinoe and Meghan Klingenberg in 2019. Through the content arm of RE—INC, Heath hopes to provide the kind of analysis she’d want to see and “reimagine the way women are seen and experienced in sports.” The first episode dropped Thursday.
“We say we live at the intersection of sports progress and equity,” 35-year-old Heath said. “It’s always kind of cool to see how with just a single platform — which essentially was the legacy of the founders and all of our fights both on and off the field — how we’ve used that to create a vehicle that could far outlast any of our own individual playing careers.”
Ahead of the USWNT’s first game in the 2023 World Cup — its matchup against Vietnam is set for 9 p.m. ET on Friday on FOX — For The Win spoke with Heath about her expectations for the team, its biggest competition, equity in women’s soccer and the upcoming retirement of star Megan Rapinoe.
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
How are you feeling not being with the USWNT right now ahead of the World Cup and preparing for it as an analytical observer?
For some of those players, I’ve shared the field with [them] pretty much my whole entire life, so seeing them, there is that familiarity with the team. But the team looks really different as well, especially the team that’s kind of on the field now doing the soccer thing. It’s another generation, it’s a new generation, and it’s something I’m looking forward to.
I always love the evolution of teams, the evolution of programs, and actually just the evolution of our sport is really cool. And the World Cup is a global moment, so what happens in this moment is we see a massive shift in the landscape of women’s football but really women’s sports. …
But I know, speaking to my teammates that are over there, they’re in that mode. The week before the first game, you’re in that mode where you’re like, “Let’s just get started!” Like, “We’re prepared, let’s just get started!” And there’s that kind of like nervous energy where you just want to do what you’re there to do, which is win a World Cup, but you’re kind of being like held back by the schedule. So I feel that in a way speaking to them, and obviously having lived through it many times, I almost feel that kind of nervous, exciting energy of right now even being at home.
Looking at this World Cup through an analytical lens, what are you most looking forward to about your show RE—CAP and breaking down the tournament?
For us as athletes, we’re always taking on that analytical role. Whether it’s in front of a camera or behind the camera, we analyze our performance, we analyze the team’s performance, we analyze the game. That’s just a natural thing about the job. But I think the frustrating part — The RE—CAP Show was born was out of a frustration with how women’s sports and women’s athletes are portrayed and spoken about. We really believed throughout our careers that women’s athletes were really pushed through a very tight and specific lens. And honestly, it doesn’t celebrate the diversity of what a women’s athlete is, and it honestly doesn’t look and feel anything like us. …
I’m excited to create the content that I’ve yearned for for women’s sports for all my career. But obviously being on the other side of playing — I’m not able to do that when I’m playing, right? But now, I have the opportunity to, and whenever I see an opportunity, everyone knows, I’m probably one of the most passionate people there are once I get set on what I want to do.
It's so hard to win three consecutive championships, in anything. What do you think the No. 1 thing Team USA has to do to come out with the trophy again?
It’s the Wild West of women’s football, and I really think that this team has a massive question mark over it. And I think that’s because there’s so many new and exciting players that could, at any point, just go off and have a tournament of their life. But whether that will happen or not is for us to kind of watch and enjoy.
I think that winning anything, especially a World Cup if you look at the history of the tournament, is really, really hard. I remember when after 2015 — which was like actually a big monkey off our back because we haven’t won a World Cup since that iconic ’99 moment. So we went a pretty long time before we then won in 2015, and then, of course, we won in 2019. But you have to remember, 2011 we got to the final. 2015 we won the final. 2019 we won the final. So really, we’ve only known World Cup Finals for the last three World Cups. And that’s a lot of pressure. But that’s what it means to play on the USWNT team. The only the only outcome that anyone will be happy with is if we win the World Cup.
When you look at the 2023 USWNT World Cup roster, which players should American soccer fans keep their eyes on for this tournament?
For such a long time, the USWNT has had a core group of players that have really taken them through the last couple world championships in a big way. And what people don’t realize is that the USWNT — any face on it is nothing without winning, period. It is a team sport. It is completely dependent on the team success for any individual to emerge as the next face of the USWNT.
There’s a couple players that I think have the individual qualities to really become those names that everyone’s talking about. One player that I just absolutely love watching is [22-year-old forward] Sophia Smith. I think she’s so dynamic. I think she’s one of those players that can pick up the ball at our own half and completely take it all the way to score a magnificent goal. …
The USWNT never has a problem producing talent, and we have it in abundance, unlike most teams. But I will say like, there’s so much talent, and there’s so much individual talent on this team. And you wonder how each of those pieces will fit together. But for all of these emerging stars. We know that the talent’s there, but I think the team as a whole also has to bring that completeness to this tournament for us to really be able to see these players shine.
And I really hope that this team goes to the final, so that we can have like our next superstar emerge. We’ll get to like see the greats like Megan Rapinoe and Alex Morgan, which is incredible. Alex will show up at this tournament. There’s no question about it. She knows exactly what to do in this moment. But for the next generation, you want that next star, and this is the perfect platform to kind of emerge.
With Megan Rapinoe retiring this year, how would you sum up her legacy in one word?
Historical. I think what she has done for women’s football will remain in the history of not just our sport, but in the history of the world. And I think that’s very, very powerful. Like I said, I think that these figures emerge generationally that are kind of tasked to do the unthinkable. And I don’t even think in the moment while they’re doing it, they’re necessarily aware [of] what they’re doing. They’re almost a vessel, I really believe, for something so much larger than any of us could ever imagine.
And I kind of get goosebumps, because we look at the USWNT and what that has meant for kind of the progress that has been put into the world, and of course, there has to be faces to that movement, right? And it’s been really cool to see how one person being unapologetically themselves within a team of unapologetic people has really risen to an occasion that was global and transformative and will go down in history forever.
FTW: And you’ve obviously played with Rapinoe for such a long time –
Heath: Yeah, I mean, it’s no surprise! I think a lot of people are like, “Oh, my gosh, Pinoe’s retiring?” And it’s like, yeahhh, that’s the natural progression of things. And it is really cool. We had [former USWNT coach] Jill Ellis on our show, and she said, “It’s hard to make it to the national team, but it’s even harder to stay there.” And when you look at the players who have stayed on the national team for a very long time, there’s a mutual respect that lives there because it is the hardest place to stay because it’s so elite and it takes so much sacrifice. So when you look at her career and the age she’s at now and still being able to bring something on the field — and obviously bring so, so much off the field — it’s an exceptional career and one that should be applauded.
And there’s actually a bunch of players there, not just Megan Rapinoe, that have done the same thing. You look at a Kelley O’Hara, you look at an Alyssa Naeher or you look at an Alex Morgan — these are players that have done that business for a long time that should all be celebrated within the same category.
Obviously, we’re gonna give our flowers to Pinoe. But history — there’s always that one person that shows up in the book. But on the USWNT, it is a collective and not just a collective of the last one, two world championships. It’s a collective that has gone back to the very formation and foundation of what the USWNT is. And that is the strength of any individual that emerges out of it.
When you look at what the USWNT has accomplished in terms of pay equity, what's the next step for women's soccer?
For the first time ever going into this World Cup, the USWNT and the USMNT will be paid equally, which is massive. That’s before they even take the field. I’m very proud of that. But that’s just a start. When we look at pay equity, this is a monster, right? And this was just one kind of piece to the problem that we were given. I think on a global scale, I think we have to address FIFA now, right? That’s kind of the global governing body of this thing. How can we achieve pay equity in the prize prize money? They’ve gotten better, right? But it’s nowhere close to the same. And I don’t think we should accept anything less than the same, and I don’t even think we should celebrate it at this point.
Before it was kind of like, “Oh, isn’t it so great that we’re kind of moving in the right direction” And I’m kind of like, I’m just tired of celebrating these kind of like incremental wins that just continue to make the gap wider. Because as long as we’re not paid equally, historically, that gap gets bigger and bigger. No matter how you tried to kind of make it closer now, historically, the gap continues to widen.
And that’s the piece of this puzzle that really hurts when we talk about pay equity, and the part that I think that needs to be addressed. And there’s no reason why, in my opinion, FIFA can’t allocate the same prize money to both the men’s and women’s teams. And that, to me, will be a major shift in progress for the landscape of women’s global football.
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