Amid rising political tension, USWNT seek to defend World Cup crown

The pause lasted 10 full seconds.

Adrianna Franch, the goalkeeper for the United States women’s national soccer team, took her time to consider the answer this question: How hard is it to represent the United States with what’s going on in the United States?

Finally, and as always thoughtfully, she spoke.

“Well, the beauty of the game is it gives us something to focus on,” Franch told a small group of assembled reporters at a media day in advance of the Women’s World Cup, which begins this week in France. She spoke at the New York headquarters of Twitter, a place where news breaks in less time than it took for Franch to gather her thoughts.

“A lot of kids, they start playing sports to get away from things that are going on outside of just what’s on the pitch. And we have to be able to do that. We have to be able to go onto that stage and focus on what we need to do our job while everything else is going on. Because what we do on the pitch helps what’s going on outside, because of what we represent, what we stand for. We understand that we have a job to do,” Franch said.

“And that’s to show, in such a public way, a different side of the United States.”

Franch is many things in this moment — her 22 teammates, as well. At a time when LGBT rights are under attack, the Portland Thorns keeper is busy planning a wedding to her partner. At a time when women of color are being marginalized, Franch will be a woman of color wearing the United States colors all summer long in France.

So sure, there are plenty of reasons to wonder whether the United State can defend its 2015 World Cup title. The rest of the world is catching up, investing in the sport, taking advantage of an infrastructure that has long allowed young boys to train at an early age in a focused way that doesn’t happen in a college pipeline in this country. No serious observer can claim it would be a shock if France, or England, or Germany, or Australia (where Sam Kerr has all but guaranteed a win) triumph this time around.

But the number of cross-currents facing this team, across cultural, economic and even intra-federation lines, would make a 2019 triumph the most impressive of all.

The team itself

Personnel-wise, Jill Ellis has built a team that has balance — youth and experience, stout defending and firepower up top — through a process that’s been deliberate and expanded the
pool of potential contributors.

“I’ll tell you, I’ve got 23 X-factors,” Ellis said Friday. “That’s how I feel. And that’s partly why they were selected. I think these players are very special. And the whole makes the team work. So I think that sounds like a cliche, but I think every single player is a game-changer for us.”

But there are some players ticketed for the starting lineup and there are some who are likely to come off the bench. That one of those players is Carli Lloyd, the seminal player of her generation, offers a similar potential for uncomfortable choices.

Lloyd, ever the intense competitor with a drive that brought her to the apex of the sport, isn’t going to provide public cover for Ellis turning her into a supersub.

Asked flat-out if she was comfortable in that role, she responded: “No, I’m not. I mean, I’m not, I’m not here to be a supersub. Plain and simple. That’s not the type of person I am. I’m a fighter. I’ll fight till the end. I know that my age isn’t a factor. My ability isn’t a factor. I feel fit as I’ve ever felt sharp as I’ve ever felt. I’ve reinvented my game these last three or four years, instead of the athletic, powerful Carly, you know, just head down and go to goal. I’m a way better soccer player [now]. I feel that my mind is the mind of a 36-year-old at the moment, but my body feels like a 26-year-old’s. There’s no doubt in my mind that doesn’t matter where you start. And that is where I finish. So a lot can happen.”

The knock-on ramifications of this are this: Should the U.S. team find itself struggling to generate offense, the looming shadow of the greatest scorer of this generation could be a savior.

Or it could make things more difficult for the expected starters, such as Rose Lavelle playing in her first World Cup. It would be absurd to ask Lloyd to be anyone different than she is. And the U.S. navigated a similar arc with Abby Wambach back in 2015. Still, it remains unresolved. As Lloyd said, a lot can happen.

The legal battle with U.S. Soccer

That loaded phrase certainly applies to the team’s ongoing legal issues with U.S. Soccer itself.

These 23 women face a duality this summer that makes life difficult for anyone. At no point in the four-year cycle will they have more leverage, more public attention and more of a chance to spotlight what they feel needs to change in the way they are compensated than right now, with a World Cup on tap, and the Olympics next year.

But the athletic stakes will never be higher, either. Lloyd, for instance, is playing in her fourth, and likely last, World Cup. Others, like the 11 making their World Cup debuts, may never get another chance.

For her part, Ellis said the conversation over pay equity simply hasn’t been part of her interactions with the players — a difficult omission, especially for a woman who has fought the good fight her entire life and who many observers believe is underpaid herself.

“I’m real fortunate to have an incredibly professional group of women,” Ellis said. “They know coming into our environment, it’s not this divide. It’s very much a cohesive unit. The players know what it takes. I think the players understand that we support them. We have their backs, on and off the field and that we are, we have to be this way. And when you’ve come together and you’re going off to try and accomplish something incredibly huge that you have to feel united. It doesn’t enter the locker room. It doesn’t enter the meeting space.”

It’s certainly not U.S. Soccer alone the players feel needs to do better by women’s soccer. Whether it is other federations in developing soccer countries, right up to and including FIFA itself, the tournament is a dual opportunity. Alongside a chance to play for the most consequential trophy the sport has to offer, there’s a chance to expand the public conversation people such as Megan Rapinoe have long driven.

“I think there have been strides that have been made, but in terms of their capacity for change and the ability for them to change, I would say they have essentially unlimited resources,” Rapinoe said of what she expects FIFA to do to further the women’s game.

“I don’t think that it’s really been a huge change at all. I think the incremental change that we’ve seen is just not enough. I don’t think that’s really the model that needs to happen. I would like to see a major paradigm shift, a major overhaul, and a doubling down, realizing that there’s been such a lack of investment for all of these years, such a lack of care and attention, um, that, doubling or tripling or quadrupling investment, care and attention to the women’s game I think would be appropriate. To make incremental change just obviously leaves, leaves the game wanting more and it’s not nearly enough at this time.”

No simple answers

What makes Rapinoe such an important voice on this issue is that she’s never content with the
simple answer for a question that requires a great deal of nuance. It isn’t just about throwing money at the problem. It isn’t just about defining the game as a second men’s soccer but with women.

And that may be the single greatest way the 2019 U.S. women can alter the sport. In a country where women of color are under siege — on a team that historically hasn’t included a significant number of women of color, either — some of Ellis’ X-factors can do more than just win games. They can change how a generation of girls grow up thinking how a soccer player looks.

Jessica McDonald understands what her existence means — to her son, Jeremiah, who will be coming to the World Cup with her. But to girls who will see his mom, this African-American woman who has overcome gruesome injuries and forced her way into the national team picture and now to France. For this country? At this moment? A Brandi Chastain moment from Jess McDonald would resonate far beyond the soccer world.

“Obviously this is something huge, just to be playing on the world stage and repping all the parents out there. Not just the parents, but obviously all of the African-American girls who feel as if they don’t have much to rely on to obviously make your dreams come true, whatever the circumstances may be. And so I just hope that this inspires them.”

More than just redemption

It’s certainly something Crystal Dunn thinks about. One cycle ago, she was the last cut by the U.S. team that headed to Canada for 2015’s World Cup. She responded by destroying everything in her wake in the NWSL en route to winning league MVP honors as an attacking forward. Now she’s a critical part of Ellis’ back line, and views her time on the field as a chance not just to help the U.S. win, but to battle the stereotypes about black athletes at the same time.

“I think I tried to implement so many different things in my game so that I’m not just known as someone being fast,” Dunn said. “I think that’s a stereotype. Everyone thinks, oh, black people, oh, we’re just really fast. I’m like, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, we are. But at the end of the day, I want to be skilled, I want to be technical, I want to have vision. And I think that’s what I’ve always tried to follow in my game is not relying on one thing, but just being able to outwork players in, in so many different ways.”

Dunn clearly understood the duality of her moment, of the U.S. moment. What would a Chastain moment from a woman of color mean?

“That’s a really great question because I do think, obviously, it’s my job to support all women,” Dunn said. “I think obviously with Chastain’s moment, it just raised so much awareness for the game, but how cool would it be if that was a black woman, a black woman in that play, and that is really ultimately what I think could happen in this World Cup.”

But then, of course, the corrective: It is hard enough just to win a World Cup, without serving as a balm to the wounds currently being self-inflicted in this country, to attack the long-standing issues of inequality over gender, over race, over sexuality. It’s all on the table for the United States. But so, too, are some soccer matches they have to win to make the inroads they dream of, sitting in New York.

“With that said, I’m not really in this World Cup to be like, ‘I want that moment to be me’,” Dunn continued. She smiled. She wasn’t predicting it, but she sure could see it.

“But I do think it will change the landscape of the game.”