US Women Set to Face WC QF South Africa Sun on TNT
The US ladies sent off Julie Ertz in style with a solid 3-0 win at Cincy and have a chance to do the same for Megan Rapinoe today at 5;30 pm in Chicago on TNT. Both of the ladies were instrumental in both the Championships and the Growth of women’s soccer in the US. The US will look to regain their footing as they prepare for the Olympics in France next summer.
US Ladies Roster for South Africa Series
GOALKEEPERS (3): Aubrey Kingsbury (Washington Spirit), Casey Murphy (North Carolina Courage), Alyssa Naeher (Chicago Red Stars)
DEFENDERS (9): Alana Cook (OL Reign), Tierna Davidson (Chicago Red Stars), Crystal Dunn (Portland Thorns FC), Emily Fox (North Carolina Courage), Naomi Girma (San Diego Wave FC), Sofia Huerta (OL Reign), Casey Krueger (Chicago Red Stars), Kelley O’Hara (NJ/NY Gotham FC), Emily Sonnett (OL Reign)
MIDFIELDERS (7): Sam Coffey (Portland Thorns FC), Savannah DeMelo (Racing Louisville FC), Julie Ertz (Unattached), Lindsey Horan (Olympique Lyon, FRA), Rose Lavelle (OL Reign), Ashley Sanchez (Washington Spirit), Andi Sullivan (Washington Spirit)
FORWARDS (8): Mia Fishel (Chelsea FC, ENG), Ashley Hatch (Washington Spirit), Alex Morgan (San Diego Wave FC), Megan Rapinoe (OL Reign), Trinity Rodman (Washington Spirit), Jaedyn Shaw (San Diego Wave FC), Alyssa Thompson (Angel City FC), Lynn Williams (NJ/NY Gotham FC)
GAMES ON TV SCHEDULE
Sun, Sept 24
9am peacock Arsenal vs Tottenham
11:30 am USA Sheffield U vs Newcastle
12 noon CBSSN Bologna vs Napoli
3:30 pm ESPN+ Atletico Madrid vs Real Madrid
5:30 pm TNT, Uni, Cock USWNT vs South Africa Chicago Rapinoe last game
7:30 pm FS1 Orlando City vs Inter Miami
9:30 pm FS1 Austin vs LA Galaxy
Mon, Sept 25
3:30 pm ESPN+ Man United vs Crystal Palace
Megan Rapinoe talks legacy, future of USWNT, women’s sports: ‘It feels very much like a beginning’
By Steph Yang and The Athletic StaffSep 23, 202333
Megan Rapinoe took her place in front of a crowd of media members Saturday ahead of her last game for the U.S. women’s national team. While she’s closing the door on a two-decade-long career — which includes two World Cup trophies, an Olympic gold medal and a Ballon d’Or Féminin — Rapinoe is looking at the new beginning rather than an end.
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“I obviously know that this is an ending of one chapter but it feels very much like a beginning,” she said. “I’m really excited about what’s to come and love where the game is now and where the sport is now. I think women’s sports in general, the landscape around it, is in such an exciting place, and I hope to continue to be a part of that in a really big way, just on the other side of things.”
She didn’t get into the specifics, but the soccer player-turned-global icon made clear she wants to continue working in women’s sports, something she feels especially qualified to do. Rapinoe mentioned the growth of women’s soccer, the WNBA, the new Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL) and the dominance of tennis star Coco Gauff among things that excite her about the landscape.
“I feel like I’m uniquely suited and very much know how to talk about women’s sports,” Rapinoe said. “I hope to be a big part of that business building and marketing and branding of women’s sports and I don’t really necessarily want to be tied to one thing or one organization but looking to use my platform and the leverage that I have pretty similar to how I do now. I just will have a lot more free time to do so. ”
Rapinoe answered each question at length as she reflected on her long career, drifting toward her work off the field as standing out, particularly her and the team’s advocacy for issues around gender equity, social justice and trans rights.
“I think we’ve been a big part of pushing, talking about — whether it’s gay rights or racial justice or trans rights — more into every conversation around sports and particularly around women’s sports,” Rapinoe said. “We’ve been such a driver of that and made that just as important as what we are doing on the field. I think we really believe it is just as important.
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“We understand what it means to not have to sacrifice who you are and what that means for your playing the field. So I’m incredibly proud of everything that we’ve done on the field. Obviously, we’ve been a really special generation of players, but I think it says a lot about us that everything on the field I feel like kind of pales in comparison to what we’ve achieved off the field.
“And where we’ve chosen to sort of throw our weight and the way that we have used what is our greatest gift and all of our talent, and something that’s really special that we were all born with to try to make the world a better place and to try to leave the game in a much better place than where we found it.”
On the field, Rapinoe said she feels that part of the reason she has so much peace retiring is that players like Sophia Smith, Naomi Girma and Trinity Rodman are stepping up and continuing to move the team forward — including the important lessons learned during the early exit from this summer’s World Cup.
She spoke to the pressure that has been on the field and the joy that was also a legacy she feels she will leave.
“I think, particularly for this team, there was so much pressure on it all the time, certainly on the field. But especially for us during the last seven years. So much pressure about everything that we said, everything that we did, whether we were kneeling or talking about equal pay or talking about trans rights, there’s so much pressure,” Rapinoe said. “I was like we have the right to enjoy what we’re doing as well. And I think a lot of times my joy, expressions of joy, was absolutely an act of resistance or a big glaring sort of middle finger to everyone. Like this is my life and this is my career, and I get to do with it what I want to do with it.”
Rapinoe will take the field for the 203rd time on Sunday at Soldier Field in Chicago. It will be her last wearing the crest. There might be a 64th or 65th goal. There will be tears, but there will also be joy. And after a final run in the NWSL next month, there will also be a much-needed break.
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“I’m looking forward to a little bit of rest,” she said.
Julie Ertz on choosing to retire: ‘It’s not because mama can’t play, mama can play’
Meg LinehanSep 21, 2023
Elite athletes don’t always have the power to end their careers on their terms, but no one could have predicted how Julie Ertz’s time as a professional soccer player would close. She made a surprise return to the U.S. women’s national team for the 2023 World Cup following a long injury layoff and the birth of her son. She then essentially announced her intent to retire following the USWNT’s early exit in the round of 16 on live television after playing every single minute as a center back — a position she hadn’t played in years. Then came her formal announcement in August and a send-off match in Cincinnati on Thursday.
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https://cf351683b5e28a4a38e8f78b8b736eba.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-40/html/container.htmlErtz said in her final press conference that sports take sacrifice, and now time with her family has become irreplaceable.“I learned that after every tournament, very successful or not, it’s always like: ‘What’s next?’ You always want to get better; there’s always the next opportunity,” she said, noting that she never wanted to have regrets about her career but that she had gotten to a point where she felt she could choose to step away.“It’s not because mama can’t play, mama can play,” Ertz said, leaning into her microphone to emphasize her point and earning a good round of laughs. “(I’ve) just adapted my priorities. That just comes with age. I’ve been so blessed to have the career that I’ve had.
“It’s not because Mama can’t play… Mama can play.” @julieertz is retiring on her own terms. pic.twitter.com/CBC409nT8f
— U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team (@USWNT) September 20, 2023
She spoke at length on Wednesday about that career, about the sacrifice of playing in the early days of the NWSL, about her World Cup experience this summer and about the generation following in her footsteps. But her answer about what she’ll remember most of everything off the field reflected the culture of the team best.
“If you ever wear the crest, you are part of a family that nobody really understands, except for the players that have played here with the team,” Ertz replied. That connection, that solidarity, that shared desire to make things better, that’s the thing that Ertz said made the USWNT family special.
“You grow up here. Talking about memories, I think that’s the emotional part that I’m at right now when I step away with a player that I played with for a really long time and you start talking about memories and history and just things that you have together.”
Her time with the USWNT showed her firsthand, the power of the team’s platform. She said it had directly impacted her decision to start the Ertz Family Foundation with her husband Zach.
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“I think that it’s just been an incredible space to grow up in, to make you not just a better soccer player, but a better person,” she said.
The emotions on Wednesday in Cincinnati were certainly present, especially for Ertz’s teammates, but from the other side of the press conference room, there was a noticeable comfort around her decision. Five months ago in Austin, when she made her return to the USWNT environment, those emotions — especially around her 100th cap celebration — had been much closer to the surface. Before her return to the team, she had gone over 600 days without appearing in a high-level match, the Bronze medal game in the 2021 Tokyo Olympics. Ertz had earned her 100th cap in March 2020, but the actual celebration of that was a moment she wasn’t entirely sure she would have. In the mixed zone in Austin before the game, Ertz got unexpectedly emotional — surprising even herself a bit, before managing to hold back her tears for the most part.
“The 100th cap was super emotional in its own way,” she said on Wednesday. This time, she’s had more time to reflect, in fact, “all I’ve been able to do is reflect,” she said.Going through those memories has been hard. “Maybe it’s like an ‘Office’ quote, ‘I wish you knew you’re in the good times when you’re in the good times,’” she said.“You remember all the hardest times of this sport. And in the moment you’re like, ‘This sucks. I want this to be gone.’ Now when you’re older, you’re like, ‘Gosh, I’m so grateful for that time.’ If I just knew at that moment that I was actually in such an incredible time,” she said. “You’re just like, ‘Dang, it goes by so fast.’”Later in the mixed zone, captain Lindsey Horan admitted that she had popped out of the locker room to do media and started crying as soon as she spotted Ertz doing an interview with the broadcast crew for no reason.
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“I’m not gonna cry,” she promised reporters (a promise she did keep, though it got close), but Horan stressed just how much she respects Ertz as a player, not just for giving her all every single time she stepped onto the field, but for her work she does on and off the field.It’s the small moments Horan’s trying to hang on to this week. They spent plenty of time next to each other in the locker room over the years when Horan wore the No. 9.“Little moments in camp,” Horan said, “like even last night we were just sitting around our little snack room, just talking about random things. Julie was talking about TikTok and I’m just like, ‘I can’t believe it, Julie’s on TikTok.’”
Lindsey Horan held off tears when talking about teammate Julie Ertz. (Photo by Brad Smith/Getty Images).
It was even something as simple as Ertz’s laugh for her. “It always makes me laugh. I don’t even have to be in the conversation, but it always makes me smile and it makes me happy.”
Horan expected tomorrow night’s game to be meaningful and wanted Ertz to enjoy those final moments at TQL Stadium.
Ertz will be missed on the field too, of course. Her partnership alongside Naomi Girma as the team’s center back pairing was the highlight of the USWNT’s World Cup performance this summer — especially considering how quickly that chemistry had to be developed following Ertz’s return in April.“Julie has been such a leader on this team,” Crystal Dunn said on Wednesday. “She’s so tenacious on the field. Everyone who watches her play knows that she is that go-getter, that ball-winner kind of player. Her intensity is going to be greatly missed on the field, just her ability to dominate the zone that she plays in.”
The next generation is ready to step up as Ertz steps away, though. She spoke of Andi Sullivan and Sam Coffey and their readiness to take over the defensive midfielder role for the USWNT. Girma showed this summer that she is the present and future of leadership on the team’s backline — and was a player that Megan Rapinoe (whose final USWNT game is this weekend) had directly compared to Ertz as immediately irreplaceable for the senior national team.
Plenty of players have had plenty of praise for Naomi Girma, but Megan Rapinoe really laid out why she thinks Girma is a generational player for the #USWNT today here in Frisco. pic.twitter.com/EnFfLDF6SB
— Meg Linehan (@itsmeglinehan) February 21, 2023
With one final cap still to earn, Ertz currently has 122 appearances to her USWNT career with a record of 100 wins, 17 draws and only five losses. Seventeen of those games were World Cup matches, all of which she started. While her career stats don’t always reflect the contributions she made on the field for the U.S., her 20 career goals do stand out as one of the team’s favorite set-piece targets. She scored half of those with her head and 16 of the 20 were on set pieces (half from free kicks, half from corner kicks), plus eight were game-winners.
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“There’s so much to learn from her, but I feel like her professionalism and attention to detail are (some) of the top that I’ve seen,” Girma said. “How she’ll break down every play and be like, ‘We could have been one step higher, or we’re one step off.’ Looking at every little detail, and the fact that she’s doing that in one of her last games for us, having that commitment throughout her career. Obviously, I wasn’t part of it for a long time, but seeing a glimpse of it is something that I’ll definitely take away and something that I hope I can continue doing throughout my career.”
For her part though, Ertz didn’t want to name an heir apparent; “comparison is the thief of joy,” she cited on Wednesday.
“Everyone brings their own thing. Having the expectation that someone’s just going to fill in the way someone (else does) takes away from what they have,” she said. “There’s tremendous space for players to grow into, and I think as I’ve been here for, what, 11, 12 years, whatever it’s been, you grow into that position off of adversity, off of experience. So I think every individual player needs to go through their own journey for what that is.”
As Ertz had said herself, she grew up within the USWNT environment. She won a couple of World Cups along the way. On Thursday night in Cincinnati, she’ll close this chapter of her life, and start another, hoping that she did her part to raise the next generation, showing them the DNA of the USWNT team, on and off the field.
(Photo: Meg Linehan/The Athletic)
What did you think of this story?
Meg Linehan is a senior writer for The Athletic who covers the U.S. women’s national team, the National Women’s Soccer League and more. She also hosts the weekly podcast “Full Time with Meg Linehan.” Follow Meg on Twitter @itsmeglinehan
How to watch the friendlies
Thursday’s game in Cincinnati will air at 7:30 p.m. ET on TNT, Universo and Peacock. Action from Soldier Field will air at 4:30 p.m. CT Sunday on TNT, Universo and Peacock.
USWNT schedule
| OPPONENT | DATE | TIME | HOW TO WATCH |
|---|---|---|---|
| South Africa | Sept. 21 | 7:30 p.m. ET | TNT, Universo and Peacock |
| South Africa | Sept. 24 | 5:30 p.m. ET | TNT, Universo and Peacock |
| Colombia | Oct. 26 | 9 p.m. ET | TNT, Universo and Peacock |
| Colombia | Oct. 29 | 5:30 p.m. ET | TNT, Telemundo, Universo and Peacock |
What’s up with the coaching search?
U.S. Soccer sporting director Matt Crocker shed light on the USWNT coaching search after one of the men’s team’s friendlies earlier this month, saying “in an ideal world” the federation hopes to have the position filled by the start of December camp.
Crocker said Kilgore will remain in the interim role through the team’s October friendlies. Crocker added that the federation is looking to hire a coach who “has got the ability to make in-game changes in key moments to improve the performance of the team.”
Andonovski resigned as USWNT coach after a disappointing World Cup campaign that saw his roster and playing time decisions called into question.
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Asked what attributes he’s looking for in the next USWNT coach, Crocker said: “If you look tactically, we already know that we’ve got a great group of athletic women and a huge pool to pick from, so things like our ability to transition quickly is a key strength, defensively we’ve been really strong.
“I guess what we’d like to do is maybe develop more in a possession-based style and to have maybe a Plan B and a coach that has got the ability to make in-game changes in key moments to improve the performance of the team is going to be key, and obviously a coach that is a development coach, so a coach that can integrate young players into the team is going to be important. But then probably the final attribute is going to be the human skills, the leadership skills, so a strong communicator, someone that can build fantastic relationships, someone that can drive the program forward is all gonna be key.”
What else is new?
U.S. Soccer announced last week that it will build a national training facility in the Atlanta metropolitan area funded in part by a $50 million donation from Atlanta United owner Arthur Blank.
The federation has not yet finalized an exact location for the facility, but it hopes that construction will begin next year. U.S. Soccer CEO JT Batson is currently leading the search for the site, which will be selected in January 2024.
The organization has also not set a target opening date for the facility, which will serve as headquarters for U.S. Soccer, currently based in Chicago. It will include training fields, facilities for coaching and referee education, recovery and performance analysis and other infrastructure. It will also host youth tournaments and soccer conferences.
“We’re not just erecting a building or facility. This is a once-in-a-generation moment for soccer in the U.S.,” Blank said at an event commemorating the facility announcement Saturday.
Atlanta mayor Andre Dickens said his city is now “the capital of soccer in this nation,” while MLS commissioner Don Garber called the facility “one of the most important projects in the history of soccer in America.”
Megan Rapinoe from those who know her: ‘She makes the tough times easier for everybody’
Sep 24, 2023
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To have crossed paths with Megan Rapinoe is to have a Megan Rapinoe story.
Back in 2019, following a second World Cup trophy, The Pose, and her breakout into the mainstream, I wrote a long feature about how Rapinoe was one of our Athletes of the Year at The Athletic — it was a collection of short stories about Rapinoe, the human and the player.
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So when my colleague Steph Yang and I started asking teammates, coaches and staff (who have known her for years) for their Rapinoe stories ahead of her final U.S. game on Sunday, the answers didn’t surprise us. Of course they have them. There’s just one small challenge: can they be shared?
A decade of Megan Rapinoe shows how far women’s soccer has come
When I asked U.S. women’s national team forward Midge Purce in Cincinnati last week for her best story, she stared back at me for a second. “That’s fit for public consumption,” I clarified.
“Yeah, that’s the key!” She laughed, staring off and rummaging through what must be a pretty good mental file of options.
“I’m thinking about Cabo,” she starts, before a long pause. “No.” Definitely nothing for publication there. What about the White House, when the U.S. teammates appeared with President Joe Biden on Equal Pay Day?
“Oh, that was fantastic,” Purce said. “Pinoe has been one of the most welcoming icons from the very beginning, she’s always been super, super down to earth. It was crazy to go to the White House, and she’s been there before. I mean, I’ve been there, but she’s been there for sports reasons. She was just a friend, walking through the White House with me. But honestly, I don’t have an appropriate story even when I think about the White House. The things that went on behind the scenes, I can not share.”
Purce laughed all over again. There’s probably been a lot of that over the past few days, and there will be a little bit more on Sunday as Rapinoe takes the field one final time for the U.S. at Soldier Field in Chicago. There will be tears too. Taking the field while wearing the U.S. crest for the 203rd time, Rapinoe’s USWNT chapter will come to a close, but the stories are going to live on.
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Here are a few of the ones we could get on the record.
– Meg Linehan
Lori Lindsey – USWNT teammate from 2006-2013
This is a story that reminds me of Megan a lot. It makes me laugh periodically and also, whenever we’re together, we reference it and make jokes. It was back in the Algarve (Cup) days when we used to play the championship and then we’d most likely stay up through the middle of the night, or only get a few hours of sleep because we’d have an early, like 2 or 3 a.m. bus ride back to Lisbon from the Algarve to catch an early flight.
Most of us would go to our favorite Indian food place or (get) pizzas and this random year, for some reason, there were all these pizzas delivered and one was like shrimp alfredo or something. To say the least, it didn’t sit well with some people, in particular Aaron Heifetz, our press officer.
(Ed.note: Aaron Heifetz could neither confirm nor deny the cuisine from this story to The Athletic, but was firm that it could not have been shrimp, as he does not consume shrimp.)
Megan and I were on the bus, (Heifetz) was always diagonal from us where we usually sat on the bus. And so all of a sudden we hear this kind of like, ‘blech, blech.’ Heif says, ‘Stop the bus, stop the bus,’ and then vomits everywhere. I mean, it’s a bit of hyperbole, but it did feel like the barf scene from the movie ‘Stand By Me’ because there were other people that were sick as well. Anyway, they did have to stop the bus. They pulled over. (Heif) obviously changes into other windbreaker pants — listen, it was just f—ing hilarious, but also disgusting. Also, everyone felt terrible because people had food poisoning. It wasn’t great. And we were about to go on a transatlantic flight.
Megan and I, per usual, are just full of jokes and shenanigans, and we turned it into a song. I mean, the song isn’t great, but here it goes.
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It’s like (rhythmically) ‘Blech blech, stop the bus, stop the bus, too late, too late.’ Heifetz was I think so embarrassed, but he was like, ‘too late, too late’ after barf was everywhere. And so Megan and I, to this day, still sing the song. It makes us laugh. We crack up, we reference it to Heif all the time.
It reminds me of Megan because as you would know, the environment can be really competitive. It can be mundane, it can be repetitive, and Megan and I were always up for shenanigans. But Megan in particular, I think one of the reasons why she’s been able to have the career that she has is because, yes, she takes the craft seriously; yes, she takes her platform and her voice incredibly seriously; but it’s the shenanigans, these laughs, that she doesn’t take seriously. And that story just makes me laugh. It makes me think of Megan and why she has been so popular amongst teammates, but also just successful within the sport.
Megan Rapinoe addressing the media at the 2019 World Cup. (Photo by Catherine Ivill/Getty Images)
Aaron Heifetz — USWNT press officer for more than two decades
In 2019, everyone thought that the stuff with Megan and our former President was so huge. Of course, it was outside the team and in the world, but inside the team, it really wasn’t. So the tweets hit, and I’m like, “What is going on here?” You never panic, I’m not going to go rushing to Megan. We actually went to training and we’re coming back and pulling into the hotel, and Megan finds me and is like, ‘Yeah, I think we need to talk.’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, we need to talk.’
We had her set to do the FIFA press conference the next day. We weren’t even thinking about pulling her from this press conference, and she was also like, ‘No way, I want to do it.’
She just goes, simply, “I’ve thought about it, this is what I want to say. What do you think?” I told her maybe you should say that the swearing was inappropriate. She said, “Yeah, maybe I’ll do that.” Of course, being Megan Rapinoe, she did not apologize for the swearing; she did eventually. But she just went there the next day and was amazing.
But that’s Megan. She makes the tough times easier for everybody. Just because she has such a high level of intelligence, emotional intelligence. She was great.
Merritt Mathias – Reign teammate from 2015-2017
I have to give P so much credit for me really diving into my sexuality. I went to Seattle when I was in my formative 20s. I got there, I was like 25. And I walked in there being like the straight, straight, straight girlie from Birmingham, Alabama and very quickly became friends with P. All of a sudden I’m like looking around. I’m like, listen, all my friends are gay. I’m not gay. Couldn’t be me.
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I was there for a year and Sue (Bird) and P had just started dating. I spent a lot of time at their house and they were like, “Listen, please be a lesbian. Like you’re just gonna absolutely love it. Your life is just gonna be so much better. Just embrace it.” I have to thank P for my coming out story. So thank you for that. I love her. She will never be able to like, take that away, but I will literally never forget them being like, ‘Please, please, just be a lesbian.’
Stephanie Cox – Long-time youth and professional teammate
I grew up playing club soccer with Megan and her twin sister Rachael. I remember long road trips down to Southern California and going to regionals in Hawaii and nationals in Georgia. Prior to our games in Hawaii, we got to tour and visit some beaches which was very exciting because that was my first time in Hawaii. Those were sweet and simple times for us and our youth teammates.
Megan had quite an impact on the field at (the University of Portland) as well as off the field. She had a hard time assimilating to all of the team rules and it impacted one of our road trips to BYU and her involvement. Her strong viewpoint would not be stifled. At the time this was difficult with all of the norms and unity that were stressed in college to create a cohesive team with so many individuals from different backgrounds. I honestly don’t remember the particulars, I would just stress that she wasn’t into conformity.
But over the course of Megan’s career, she has shown a new way of celebrating everyone’s unique personalities and traits that can make a team shine. I can’t help but think that this adversity only served to further galvanize Megan’s resolve into the dominant spokesperson she is today.
Laura Harvey – OL Reign head coach
So the backstory to both of these stories: it’s the early days of the Reign, early days of the league. Whenever we would go to new cities on away games, because of how far we would travel, we’d always end up there early. So if you’re in New Jersey, people would want to go into Manhattan for the afternoon. Going to play Western New York, if the players wanted to go, someone would drive them to Niagara Falls. In year one, a couple of us did it. In year two, a couple of us did it. So it’s 2015, Sam (Laity) the assistant coach takes a group of about five to Niagara Falls, and the rest of us stay back. The plan is to meet for team dinner at six. Around 6:15, our phones just started blowing up in the group chat.
There are these photos of Kim (Little) and Sam, and it looks like they’ve been arrested. And we’re all like, “What the f— is going on, you were supposed to be at team dinner 15 minutes ago.” They were like, “Sam and Kim went beyond the fence, the police arrested them, and they’re just getting a court citation.” And I’m like, “If Sam Laity gets Kim Little deported, I’m gonna kill him.”
One of those photos had Kim and Sam literally on rocks in the Falls. And Sam’s doing this stance where he’s got his thumb up sideways. (Rapinoe) and all those guys are at the World Cup (in 2015), and they’re all like, ‘What the hell is going on?’
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So fast-forward to the 2021 Olympics. Pinoe scores an olimpico, top corner, there’s no one in the stands. Except me. I’m the coach in the stand. So when she scores, obviously, I’m yelling and she just turned, stands, two feet spread — you’ll have to find the photo — and massive sidewards thumb. And I’m just like, ‘How freaking cool is that?’ This has been going on since 2015, it’s the funniest, dumbest story that just lasted and she took it global. That s— went global, everyone knew about it! I’m texting Sam, ‘You’re in USA Today,’ and he’s like, ‘What do you mean?’ Sidewards thumb. Who does that? She’s got no concept that what she’s done is so funny and so impactful to everyone around her. She just took something that was so Seattle Reign and made it global.
Rapinoe celebrates after scoring at the 2021 Summer Olympics. (Photo by Jack Gruber/USA TODAY Sports)
Sidewards thumb again. Pregame, we’re in the locker room, we’re in Washington, D.C., Maryland, wherever it is. It’s a massive game, I think we needed to win it, it was towards the end of the season. I was really getting into them, ‘We’re setting the tone for playoffs,’ that sort of thing. I’m not really aggressive, that’s not just who I am, but I’m trying to do this motivational speech.
So I’m like, ‘We need to make sure that we win every tackle, that we complete every pass, and we get into it in the final third and all that.’ Then, ‘You need to do it for yourself! You need to do it for the people around you!’ Then I sort of lose track of what I’m saying. ‘You need to do it… do it for… your country!’
And Pinoe just stands up, in the middle of the group, and just gradually brings the sidewards thumb up over her head. And everyone just bursts out laughing. So my aim was to give this really good, motivational, rah-rah, we’re going to go out there and smash them speech, and it ended with everyone absolutely rolling around laughing because I lost my train of thought and Pinoe just… and that’s what sidewards thumb became. This thing that whenever it was a little bit awkward, a little bit funny, but no one was quite sure if you should laugh or not, just raise the sidewards thumb.
Oh my god, I have so many stories. And all of them, I’m like, should I tell that one?
LAFC, Union exemplify why it’s so hard to excel after making it to MLS Cup
By Elias Burkeep 23, 2023
In 2015, MLS commissioner Don Garber made headlines across the pond by suggesting the league he runs is more competitive than the Premier League. His reasoning: That while just a handful of teams in the Premier League can realistically win the title in any given season, just about every team in MLS begins the season believing they have a chance of winning MLS Cup.
“We see some of the challenges of competing in the Premier League,” he said at a Soccerex conference in Manchester. “We have wealthy owners, but we are very committed to the idea that at the start of every season, every fan can think their team can win a championship. We want someone in Kansas City, even though they are smaller than New York City, to think they can win the title.”
Since 2012, there have been five winners of the Premier League: Manchester City, Liverpool, Chelsea, Leicester City and Manchester United. In Spain’s La Liga, there have been three winners in the same span; in France, PSG has dominated the past decade, winning eight of the last 10 league titles; in Italy, Juventus won nine in a row during the 2010s and in the Bundesliga, the least “competitive” of Europe’s top five leagues at the top end, Bayern Munich have swept every league title since 2013.
By contrast, it’s extremely difficult to repeat as champion in MLS, even once. The 2023 regular season performance of last year’s MLS Cup finalists LAFC and Philadelphia Union, who meet this weekend in league play, proves as much.
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Since a team last had repeat success, there have been nine MLS Cup winners. LAFC collected both the Supporters’ Shield (given to the team with the best regular season record) and MLS Cup in 2022, but this year it’s St. Louis City, playing their first season in MLS, that is leading the Western Conference despite many pundits (including most of The Athletic’s writers) predicting they would finish dead last.
For better or worse, it’s by design: MLS is supposed to have an equal playing field. The league sits in the awkward position of aspiring to grow while also making the most of its place in the food chain. When a side wins MLS Cup, for example, they will now almost invariably inevitably spend the winter preparing for bids for their best talent from abroad, and often from Europe’s top five leagues.
After their MLS Cup triumph in 2018, Atlanta United sold star forward Miguel Almiron to Newcastle United in the Premier League, and while they responded with a solid year – finishing second in the Eastern Conference and the semifinals of the playoffs – they have failed to qualify for the postseason in two out of the three seasons since.
More recently, after New York City’s title-winning season in 2021, Valentin “Taty” Castellanos departed for La Liga with Girona. After their 2022 triumph, LAFC has since lost Gareth Bale to retirement, top goalscorer Cristian “Chicho” Arango to Liga MX (only later to return to MLS with Real Salt Lake) and Jose Cifuentes, an important cog of the title-winning midfield, to Rangers in the Scottish Premiership. MLS clubs will naturally find it very challenging to create dynasties if it is more financially viable for them to sell their best players – though in most cases, the clubs do not even receive the full transfer fee.
“We want to develop young players, have them be successful here and then move them on,” Houston Dynamo general manager Pat Onstad told The Athletic. “I think when you do that, everybody in the club benefits. Not just ownership or our salary cap but the players training with that player. When I was in Columbus, and Zack Steffen moved on to Manchester City, the guys in that locker room felt honored to play with the guy that went on to play a bit in the Premier League and now the Championship. I think everybody’s desire is to play in a top-five league, so that’s something we’d like to do.”
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That’s not to say LAFC has struggled mightily since winning the title last year. No club has posted a more impressive start to the season in over a decade, and only the 2020 Seattle Sounders can match LAFC’s 28 points through the opening 15 games of the regular season. LAFC’s issues have surfaced later on in the year, with performances dropping significantly following their CONCACAF Champions League final defeat to Club Leon.
If you ask LAFC manager Steve Cherundolo, the straightforward reason for his side struggling to maintain that electric early season form is the inability of smaller MLS rosters, limited to 20 senior players along with up to 10 supplemental players (usually draft picks, homegrown products, and other young or developing prospects) to cope with the schedule that qualifying for continental competition brings. By the end of this season, with a deep playoff run, LAFC could have played close to 60 games.
“In tournaments like this, if you want to consistently compete in finals and win them, you have to rethink your roster rules and regulations,” Cherundolo said after losing the two-legged Champions League final 3-1 on aggregate.
“We are at a big disadvantage… money in this game buys quality players. We have a good enough team to win this tournament, but with our scheduling and all of the competitions this year, we had a lot going on. We ended up in the final not at our best moment. Roster building is about that. Having deeper rosters, more players, and more quality players on your team will allow you to extend those periods of play. Every MLS team is at a disadvantage now.”
For the 2023 season, the MLS salary cap is $5.2 million per team, excluding designated players and allocation money that can be used to buy down players’ cap hits. These constraints were once essential to ensure the league remained financially secure. But with clubs like LAFC, Toronto FC and Inter Miami, who have signed Lionel Messi to a monster deal worth over $50 million annually, demonstrating they have the ambition to build rosters with the capabilities to compete consistently in MLS and continental competition, Cherundolo argues the league is directly hurting its team’s chances of success.
Last year, for example, the Seattle Sounders became the first club to win CONCACAF’s premier club competition since 2000. Subsequently, they collapsed to a historically poor 11th-placed finish in the West, the first time the club failed to qualify for the playoffs since joining MLS. It is not the first time a team has experienced success in a continental club competition and was unable to replicate it in the league, but the persistent underperformance for American clubs (who arguably possess more star quality than their Liga MX counterparts) after MLS Cup success is at least partly influenced by the league’s restrictions on building a roster with strength in depth.
Despite losing their primary goalscorer and Bale, whose primary contribution came in the MLS Cup final, LAFC has retained the core of their squad while using the summer transfer window to strengthen their team with versatile players capable of contributing in several positions. As defending champions in this iteration of MLS go, they are about as well placed as possible to fight deep into the playoffs. Well, about as well-placed as you can be in a format that relies on hitting form at precisely the right time.
But a front office should not have to prioritize jack-of-all-trades to compete for silverware. Messi’s arrival brings millions of eyeballs worldwide to a league desperate for coverage in a saturated U.S. sports market. Competitiveness is great within reason, but it should not hinder the franchises that aspire for sustained success.
(Photo: Rob Ericson/ISI Photos/Getty Images)
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