
The U.S. women’s team leaves the stage as a new kind of American role model - hhs
https://www.newyorker.com/sports/sporting-scene/world-cup-2019-the-us-womens-team-wins-and-leaves-the-stage-as-a-new-kind-of-american-role-model
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eesmith
From the New Yorker:

> they offer an alternative to the nationalism of men who claim a monopoly on
> the meaning of country and flag

From an opinion piece in The Globe and Mail titled "Two toxic legacies of
Women’s World Cup: Hatred of VAR and loathing of Team U.S.A."

> See, it’s never just about results; it’s about what the public extrapolates
> and the U.S. team seems starkly ignorant of this fact. That’s odd, since
> most of the players are university educated. What they don’t get is how the
> rest of the world sees them. When the team is dominant and arrogant about
> it, some people see the frightening, imperious military muscle of the United
> States embodied in the team’s strutting invincibility. That kind of
> deduction is human nature.

> When the rest of the world looks at the smug behaviour and declarative,
> narcissistic goal celebrations of U.S. players, it sees a U.S. need to
> humiliate others. It sees more than childish brattiness; it sees a lack of
> compassion. It thinks of migrant children separated from their families and
> put in cages. No player goes to the World Cup emotionally equipped for
> humiliation, but that’s what the U.S. sets out to do – humiliate others and
> sneer.

