We reported earlier how the US Women’s National Team (USWNT) went down to a crushing defeat and are out of the World Cup with an embarrassing round of 16 loss to Sweden, 5-4 on penalties.
Part of the reason they lost was this missed kick from Megan Rapinoe.
She also smiled after she blew the kick.
Rapinoe described the missed penalty kick in the following way:
It tough to go out like this. You obviously saw my smile after I missed that PK [penalty], it’s just like ‘that’s a sick joke’ there’s some dark, dark Becky Sauerbruun [injured US captain] humor. But that’s the way that the game goes and that’s the way that life goes.
As my colleague Bonchie wrote earlier, maybe they should have been more focused on winning than on dancing, as they seemed to be a few days ago, dancing onto the field and talking about their “big mood.”
But perhaps the capper of the day w as when Rapinoe was interviewed at the end of the game, and she was crying. She was asked, since this was the last game of her career, if there was a memory that stood out to her in that moment. Now, some athletes might talk about how their team came together, a great win, or a great play. Not Rapinoe, For her, it was about the money.
“Probably [the] equal pay chance,” Rapinoe replied. “This team has always fought for so much more. That’s been the most rewarding part for me, of course, playing in World Cups and winning championships, and doing all that, but to know that we’ve used our really special talent to do something that’s really like changed the world forever,” she said.
Wow, what an answer that is. How bad is it when that’s what you say when your team has just lost the World Cup? It just says where her head is, and it doesn’t sound like it was in the game.
She was happy they could get paid more. But as my colleague Jim Thompson explained earlier, what this ultimately means is that they’re making more off the backs of the men. They cut a collective bargaining deal that means that the women and the men’s players are going to split 90 percent of the prize money evenly between all the players. Yet FIFA pays out more for the men’s performance, currently four times as much. So this means splitting equally means the men lose money, even though they’re the ones who are making more of it. It also means when the women’s team does poorly, as they did on Sunday, they hurt all the players’ chances to get more money.
So she’s happy about getting more because of the men? How does that even sound fair? What do the men truly think about this? I can’t imagine it makes them happy when the money is taken right out of their pockets. But collectivism, not based on your own merit, seems right in line with Rapinoe’s leftist thought pattern.
Hey, at least they got a cheer from Jill Biden.
“Today, you inspired us with your grit and determination,” Biden said. “We are proud of you. Always remember that you encourage women and girls everywhere to show up and fight for their dreams.” Was she proud of them when some of them didn’t seem proud of America during the National Anthem? Probably, because she’s Jill Biden.
Others were more blunt and a little more truthful.