WORLD JULY 16, 2011
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When the commentators on ESPN describe our women’s World Cup team, they talk about “grit” and “heart.” Of course, any ESPN listener understands that these words are code. What they are really saying is, the U.S. keeps winning, and stands poised to tally its third title on Sunday, despite being not that great.
The particular iteration is weaker than the Mia Hamm era teams. They barely qualified for this tournament and have rarely looked like the world’s best. They are unable to maintain possession for extended periods of time because they lack great ball handlers, and many of our players have a dubious first touch. Where our more skilled French and Brazilian opponents have attacked with finesse and flair, we have tended to chart a very direct, highly utilitarian path to the goal.
There’s no doubt that you can attribute their success, therefore, to pluck—and, indeed, that quality makes this team so darn likable. But that’s a fairly superficial explanation. In actuality, the United States simply spends more money and devotes greater attention to women’s soccer than any country in the world. As a result, our program attracts better athletes, who are tuned to attain a higher level of fitness. Because they train and play together so often, they have a terrific chemistry, a palpable sense of cohesion.
In short, the United States owes its success to its commitment to gender equality in soccer—a commitment that stands us in stark contrast to most of the world, even the Western world.
Consider Brazil, where women’s soccer was actually banned by law from 1964 to 1974. Women who aspired to play the game were often greeted with physical reprisal. Marta, the unjustly vilified Pele of the women’s game, has said that her brother would hit her to stop her from taking the pitch. (Click here for a similar account of a father beating his daughter for playing football.) Despite the astounding quality of Brazilian players, the team’s preparations for international competition remain haphazard at best, and players receive an appallingly slight slice of the revenues reaped by their corrupt national federation. (If Brazil had properly prepared for the 2011 tournament and received a modicum of competent coaching, they would have easily trounced all comers. Based on talent alone, Brazil should be the Brazil of the women’s game, its most dominant power, not the USA.)
Or take England, where the sport’s governing body officially banned women from playing in its stadia until 1971. When the English reached the quarterfinals of this year’s tournament, the BBC initially declined to broadcast the game. (A swirl of outrage ultimately forced the Beeb’s hand.) It’s hard to generate widespread enthusiasm, and more importantly participation, when the media treat the game with so much condescension.
Of course, our female athletes don’t outpace the rest of the world in every sport. But soccer is a special case. The game is so deeply entangled with male identity that it remains stubbornly unwelcoming to women, even in countries that should know better. Title IX has also played an important role in creating teams and competition that have provided a uniquely great training ground in the U.S., especially given the paucity of competitive women’s leagues in the world.
It’s worth briefly pausing to give credit to ESPN. American media, on the whole, have done a poor job of covering women’s sports—and this tournament in particular. During the group phase, only three reporters trailed the American team. Despite their colleagues’ lack of interest in the competition, however, ESPN has thrown plenty of resources into giving the event the attention it deserves. (After the triumph over Brazil, you couldn’t go 30 seconds on Sports Center without a glowing allusion to Abby Wambach’s heroics.) That will pay substantial dividends for the national program—ESPN has a unique capacity for creating enthusiasm for a sport from whole cloth.
So, if the American advantage in the women’s game is somewhat artificial, based on our greater investment, who cares? We have a legitimately jingoistic rationale for embracing our team. That is, our national women’s soccer program is the direct result of the more enlightened policy choices our country has made. Sure, chauvinism remains a major barrier to the game’s popularity in this country. But the performance of this team has no doubt eroded some of that. Even if these women don’t bring the most beautiful game, they represent our country’s highest ideals.
Franklin Foer is an editor-at-large for The New Republic.
6 comments
Unjustly vilified? I'm sorry, but the diving, whinging, shouting at the ref she displayed in the Quarterfinal was a display of the cynical, ugly side of football. Pretty technique should not make us ignore poor sportsmanship. It's like how people write odes to the tikka takka of Barca but ignore the invisible cards, flopping Alves, incessant tampering and sometimes cynical divery they also practice. Just because someone is insanely talented does not excuse poor sportsmanship. Lebron doesn't get a pass for flopping and "crab dribbling" from me because he's the most talented basketball player on the planet. A-Rod didn't get a pass for his slap in the 04 ALCS even though he was the best player in the AL. Marta shouldn't one either for her shenanigans. As for whether Brazil would have swept the US off the park if they had more support, I think that's debatable. They used some very questionable tactics this tournament, and that 3-4-3 was rather odd and didn't serve them well. Moreover, so often the team looked to one great individual run to save them, and rarely made impressive team play work. Even after going down a woman, the US played pretty even, got chances and found a way to hold possession and attack on the ground, not just the air. Even with their disadvantage for nearly half the game, possession was 50-50 at the end of the match (by comparison, in the France game it was 55-45 France.) Brazil had 55 minutes to play against 10, and only broke them down on a goal that could well have been offsides. Once they got the lead, their superior technique should have let them press the advantage and ice the game with a third. Instead, of course, they succumbed to a round of time wasting that was their undoing in the end. There is individual creativity and flair, but winning football requires teamwork, cohesion, structure and defense. Like we've seen before in the men's game: talent isn't all. How many times have we seen a German team with superior defense, fitness, skill and cohesion stifle more aesthetically gifted sides? Or, for that matter, Inter Milan stifle Barca in the 2010 despite being down to 10 for over an hour in the Nou? To say Brazil's women should run the US off the park is to ignore the complete game of football in favor of confusing aestheticism with glory. That's one mistake Die Mannschaft never would.
- Crock1701
July 16, 2011 at 1:32am
In order to keep American success in world soccer, however, something has to be done to sell the game at the professional level. The United States does have a six team professional soccer league, where most of the national team's women play. But teams and leagues keep folding, the players are paid a fraction of what their male counterparts collect and the stands are relatively empty. Other countries are starting to institute more professional women's soccer leagues, and their long-run outlook is often better than our own. World class soccer programs are more a product of professional play than amateur athletics, and if the USA cannot sustain viable women's professional leagues, our early dominance in this sport will disappear.
- JohnEMack
July 16, 2011 at 9:06am
Great article. However though Franklin notes, "The game is so deeply entangled with male identity that it remains stubbornly unwelcoming to women" I suspect that the entanglement only happens beyond our shores. I can't help thinking that one reason for soccer's slow uptake in the US is because women play it here as much as men, and so it is perceived, by the traditional sports fan, as "girly"
- robertgorton
July 16, 2011 at 2:52pm
Good post and you do identify the key thing that I've puzzled over; this team is just not as good as the Mia Hamm teams with respect to ball handling. I'm wondering why this should be so given the opportunities for women to play has only increased. I also believe that Sundhage has them playing a style of football that does not encourage them to work on basic skills (but it could be that they just don't have the requisite skills to begin with). Japan, France, Sweden and Germany all have better skilled players but the US has a much higher fitness level. The final tomorrow will be interesting and it's questionable whether the US should be going in as the favored team.
- agoldhammer@yahoo.com-old
July 16, 2011 at 3:46pm
Sports can be beneficial for those who participate if they don't injure themselves or others. Spectator sports is probably evil. Maybe not, if it serves as William James' "Moral Equivalent of War," without getting out of control. Which is like saying, human beings would be an attractive and likeable species if we didn't get out of control.
- skahn
July 16, 2011 at 10:09pm
I heart Team USA
- sburke
July 17, 2011 at 9:08am