Pia Sundhage responds to a dumb question with fire

Pia Sundhage had some choice words when asked about coaching a men’s soccer team.

Pia Sundhage has led the Sweden women’s national soccer team to the gold medal game of the Rio Olympics soccer tournament. The road to get there was about as tough as it could have possibly been.

Sweden took out reigning champions and number one ranked team in the world, USA, in the quarterfinals, shocking the soccer world. They followed that up on Tuesday by outlasting hosts Brazil in a second consecutive shootout win.

That’s an incredible run.

Sundhage has been here before: As the manager of the USWNT she won back-to-back Olympic gold medals in 2008 and 2012. By all accounts she is a fantastic soccer coach.

So, as often happens when a woman coaching women’s teams reaches a certain level of success, a reporter asked if she thought she could coach a men’s team.

Her response needs no further build up:

That is some straight fire. How burned do you think the face of that reporter is? Second-degree? Maybe third-degree?

It is also a valid point. A great coach is a great coach, regardless of gender. Men coach women all the time, the only difference is that that is the current “norm.”

Recently, however, more and more women have started getting opportunities to coach men. Becky Hammon is an assistant coach for the San Antonio Spurs, and won the summer league as the head coach in 2015.

Lakatriona Burnson became the first female head coach in Florida high school football history earlier this year.

With a record and attitude like Sundhage’s, who would question her ability to coach a men’s soccer team?

There is definitely one less person now.