The whole view of the USWNT as arrogant can be best summed up by this tweet from UK Independent football reporter Miguel Delaney:
The USWNT isn’t much liked by a lot of neutrals because it’s one of the first times a US team has dominated a truly international sport, bringing all the worst of the individualistic obnoxiousness of US sporting culture to truly international competition for a rare occasion.
And that’s half right.
There have been 14 tournaments for women’s national teams, 8 WWC, 6 Olympics. We have won 8 titles, more than the rest of the world combined. We’re the only team to finish top 3 in every WWC. We’ve been ranked 1 or 2 in every edition of the FIFA rankings. So yeah, the arrogance is there.
But the key to that tweet is:
it’s one of the first times a US team has dominated. No, it’s been THIRTY YEARS. Delaney, Europe and elsewhere are JUST NOW NOTICING IT.
They’re watching the WWC for the first time, and seeing the US Monster in the room and they don’t like it. They expect the WWC to be like the Men’s: But the men have five different World Cup winners in the last seven tournaments, no one more than two. The German men can’t be arrogant because Brazil’s also won twice. The Brazilians can’t be arrogant because France has also won twice. There’s no men’s team that’s won 8 of the last 14; or 4 of the last 8. Everyone would hate that team, too.
For Brazil, Marta made an impassioned plea to the girls of Brazil that the future is on them. Because the women’s game in Brazil is an afterthought and it’s by the sheer volume of people in the country and INDIVIDUAL effort/commitment that they’ve been very good on the women’s side.
US Women’s sports have been federally mandated equal opportunities to play by Title IX since the 1970s.
For England, the last six or so years, the country has been falling in love with the Lionesses. It’s a “fatherly pride” type of thing between England and their women’s team. Our women fought that battle for respect in the 1990s.
Then in 1999, the WWC sold out 90,000 seat stadiums, and we won. The USWNT stopped being a cute little thing, and became “The program that produces our female warrior champions.” The team that succeeds where our men have failed. A team that today sold out the MEN’S “Four Star” WNT jerseys first (And is getting their second ticker tape parade down New York’s Canyon of Heroes on Wednesday).
Our women’s team has been decades ahead of the entire world this whole time. We act this way for two reasons:
1. Everyone let us, by not caring about their women’s teams until recently.
2. We know those days are OVER and this is our last chance to enjoy dominating women’s soccer.
We’re not cruising into the semis anymore. Spain in the Round of 16? That was an “old semifinal.” France, England and Netherlands was like playing 3 Finals in a row. Teams that controlled possession against us, and scared the crap out of us that we could very easily lose the match.
Now that the countries of Europe are investing, it’s only a matter of time before the flaws of the US development system become a problem for us in women’s soccer. We’ve lost 3 total matches to teams ranked outside the top 7 in the last 20 years. Going forward, the list of teams with “Top 7” quality is going to be 12, 16, 20, 24 teams. We’ll still be a contender for another 12-20 years, but we’re going to be among a group of eight contenders, rather than a pair or trio of contenders.
Our Women’s staff has been calling European teams “Sleeping Giants” for years. There’s going to be a lot of giants soon. We’re going to have everyone gunning for us and someone is going to dethrone the queen. And that’s progress. It’s growth of the game. It’s great. Everyone else needs to start working on their celebrations for game-winning goals against USA now. And come up with something good.