The players and coaches for this incarnation of the U.S. women’s national soccer team are facing an unfortunate reality: Damned if they do, damned if they don’t.
Ahead of Friday’s match against China, the U.S. squad is under siege from all sides — a far cry from the adoration the Americans received the last time these two teams faced off in a World Cup match in 1999.
Then, of course, the trophy was on the line. That ’99 title-winning squad, led by head coach Tony DiCicco, set the standard for what Americans thought success should look like on the pitch. Now, heading into the quarterfinals, the entire identity of the U.S. team is in question and the group has yet to capture the hearts and minds of fans the way they have in the past — like, say, in 2011, when the final against Japan broke records on Twitter — and we’ve yet to see that memorable moment that we typically associate with a team on a tournament tear.
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Why is that, exactly?
First and foremost, there are the ever-present ’99ers and the impossibly high bar they set. On the way to a World Cup title, the casual American soccer fan became accustomed to winning. Olympic Gold medals aside, that hasn’t happened in the World Cup in the 16 years since. And there are plenty of people hanging around from that iconic ’99 team to naysay and tell the current squad exactly what they’re doing wrong.
[Former USWNT star Michelle Akers blasts Coach Jill Ellis]
DiCicco is a television analyst, who has no problem criticizing the current coach, Jill Ellis, during games. The ’99 team’s co-captain Julie Foudy is a soccer analyst for ESPN, as is her teammate from that squad, Kate Markgraf. Perhaps most notably, there’s Michelle Akers, the U.S. soccer legend who was not only a key member of the ’99 team, but also scored both goals in the 1991 Women’s World Cup final to lead the U.S. over Norway. Monday, she went on SiriusXM FC and laid it all out there.
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“What I was thinking about when Tony was talking about the team and how he would play — and he’s frustrated — he invested a lot of his heart and soul, blood sweat and tears, all of that, into that team. And so did I, so did lots of other people,” Akers said after Monday’s U.S. win over Colombia. “So, it’s not just about, hey, Jill said she’s going to do it this way and she’s not, or our team isn’t playing well. It’s about, that’s me out there. That’s my team. And so when we struggle, or when, in our opinion, the coach isn’t handling the personnel right… The lineup sucks. The subs are sketchy, we’re not all on the same page. That’s me out there. And I can feel it with Tony, too. He’s taking it personal, you know? That’s our baby out there, too.”
[1999 World Cup victory wasn’t the pinnacle of U.S. women’s sports]
When the best-ever-to-do-it are out there informing the world that the current team simply isn’t doing it right, it’s hard to build momentum with fans. Just as important, if experts don’t like what they’re looking at, the next step is to question their overall strategy.
The Americans have long relied on a style designed to outpace other teams physically, but the rest of the world has caught up using other methods. Comparatively, the U.S. team isn’t that fun to watch anymore.
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“But as the rest of the world sheds antiquated notions about women playing soccer and invests more resources into women’s programs, it has given rise to serious national teams in countries with rich footballing cultures,” Caitlin Murray wrote for The Guardian before the tournament started. “Opponents are becoming more technical, more tactically adept and highly sophisticated. Amid a quickly changing landscape, sometimes USA still look to be playing the same game they always have.”
Of course, Akers isn’t buying that as an excuse, and echoes the sentiments of many fans when she says that it shouldn’t matter. “We expect — we know — the U.S. can overpower and be more talented, more physical and be the best team, hands down, on any given day,” she said in the SiriusXM FC interview. “We know, that should be. So to see us struggle again is frustrating. Because why aren’t we? We should be.”
Women’s World Cup President and CEO of the 1999 tournament Marla Messing thinks all of the scrutiny is a good thing, in many regards.
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“I think because it was to a large extent brand new [in 1999], to a great majority of the public, there wasn’t a lot to criticize. They were obviously fantastic women, incredibly talented soccer players, intelligent, educated. They were ideal role models,” Messing said Thursday in an interview with The Post. “So as the program’s evolved, I think that the players are the same, but like anything else, because it’s evolved and because it’s become much more established, people feel much more comfortable being critical. I really think that’s more a sign of success than a sign that the current group of players can’t match the standards that the players of ’99 set.”
[With attack struggling, defense anchors the U.S.]
But this U.S. team is also being hurt by a decline in television exposure. When Fox Sports won the bid to broadcast the World Cup back in 2011, shelling out $425 million for the tournaments through 2022, most of the discussion surrounded the men’s game. But the women’s tournament benefits greatly from being on a family of networks that many people are already watching — and struggles in the shadows. Cross-promotion over channels and platforms is critical for an event that otherwise isn’t drawing a ton of eyeballs. For most, ESPN and ESPN2 are already default sports channels. Nearing two years old, Fox Sports 1 is still unheard of to many and Fox Sports 2 is even farther on the fringe. Just look at the numbers.
“As of February, according to Nielsen, Fox Sports 1 (formerly the Speed Network) was in about 85 million homes (or 73% of households). Fox Sports 2 (once known as Fuel), was in 45 million homes (39% of all households). Compare that to ESPN and ESPN2, both of which are in 94.4 million homes and 81% of all U.S. households with television,” Marketwatch’s Jason Notte explained Tuesday. “Meanwhile, Fox’s sports streaming app, Fox Sports Go, was made available on Apple, Android, Amazon Fire and Windows devices, but still lacks support on devices including Roku, Microsoft’s Xbox One and Blu-ray players that have access to ESPN’s WatchESPN streaming app.”
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Pair that lowered visibility with the fact that this year the games are broadcast in prime time, forced to compete with other sporting events and marquee programs. In 2011, the games in Germany amounted to daytime watching here in the United States, timeslots in which there were far fewer top-shelf rivals battling for viewers.
Given the obstacles it has encountered, it’s not exactly the USWNT’s fault that the interest level has been middling this far into the tournament — and the squad likely deserves more. As it gets ready to take on an old rival Friday, there is considerably less fanfare for this group, one of the more maligned U.S women’s teams, than years past. The honeymoon period long ago ended for women’s soccer in the U.S. — whether it returns or not is anyone’s guess.
Former co-captain Foudy actually wondered about that very possibility in the 2013 film “The 99ers.”
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“It’s still the most watched soccer match in U.S. history: 40 million [viewers],” she said, referring to the U.S.-China final at the Rose Bowl. “And someone once asked me, ‘Were you pioneers, or was ’99 an anomaly?’ And that question actually has haunted me for a long time. Because we so badly didn’t want to be the only ones. This is going to be the standard that everyone else would then follow with. You think that’s happened?”
Unfortunately, it hasn’t. Not yet.
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