Scott Barbour/AP
U.S. women’s soccer star Megan Rapinoe took aim at conservatives, former men’s player Alexi Lalas, and even former President Donald Trump in response to the criticism the team has received since its disappointing exit from the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup.
The women’s team has seemingly been divided among party lines due to the willingness of some players to speak out on social issues and criticize the country. After the team was eliminated by Sweden in the round of 16, Lalas claimed its stances on issues made them “unlikeable” to some.
In an interview published Tuesday by The Atlantic, Rapinoe said it was “really disappointing” that Lalas reiterating “tropes” typically heard from the right.
“Everybody on the right — and everybody who was using hateful language and these tropes — it’s like they have just been waiting since, I don’t know, 2016? 2019? They’ve been waiting for this team to stumble. But when we are perfect, then we are accused of thinking that we’re perfect.”
On Truth Social, Trump attributed their disappointing performance to going “woke.”
“The ‘shocking and totally unexpected’ loss by the U.S. Women’s Soccer Team to Sweden is fully emblematic of what is happening to the our once great Nation under Crooked Joe Biden,” Trump said. “Many of our players were openly hostile to America – No other country behaved in such a manner, or even close. WOKE EQUALS FAILURE.”
To Rapinoe, however, those words held little weight.
“It’s a compilation of hit words and hot-button words that don’t actually make any sort of sense or square with reality at all,” she said. “I think, just in general, the way that our team was spoken about over the course of the tournament, it was fake.
“And it didn’t make sense to me: In 2019, we were ultra-confident, ultra-swaggy — and won everything. And even though we won, we did it in bad taste, according to our critics. This time, we weren’t confident enough, and we don’t have the right ‘mentality.’ And so we lost. It’s just so disingenuous. There’s no way for us to win, and there’s no way for us to lose.”
The 38-year-old — who will retire from the sport at the end of the current NWSL season — then accused the right of “backlash against women.”
“They want women to believe that you can’t fight for things and be excellent; you can’t ask for what you deserve and be successful,” she continued. “But the reality is, we’re doing that. Beyonce is doing that. Taylor Swift is doing that. Coco Gauff is doing that. We are still great on the field, and we’re fighting for equality, and it’s better for our bottom line and the sport’s.
“One thing that America does really well is backlash. I think there’s a huge backlash against women happening right now.”
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