Unless you haven't checked out the news or any piece of social media today, you should already know that the US Women's National Soccer--Football--Team completely destroyed Thailand 13-0 in pool play of the FIFA Women's World Cup. That's right. 13-0. Because Team USA is not only one of the top women's teams in the world, but they're also the defending World Cup champions, it wasn't too surprising for them to take a win in this game. However, it's how much and how it was celebrated that is causing a massive uproar among people.
Basically, the term "unsportsmanlike conduct" is being thrown around.
While it's expected that a lot of people are going to disagree on a subject like this, it's also really telling when you're seeing analysts openly getting into arguments over this debacle and blocking anyone who remotely disagrees with them. It's burtal. Yes, it's pretty clear that there's no such thing as a discussion anymore, but that's an essay for another blog for a much later date.
Because there really isn't much more exposition here, we're going to cut to the chase.
Is scoring a lot on a team a form of unsportsmanlike conduct?
No. You guys. This is the World Cup. This is the absolute highest level a woman playing this sport can take part in. While there is such a thing as goal differentials and how that plays a part in advancing to the knockout stages, let's put this aside for a moment. When you're in a heavily one-sided match like that, one of the last things you can think about doing is taking your foot off of the gas. It isn't just because of pride and integrity, but if I were the other team (in this case, Thailand), I'd be a little angry if the opposing team was playing at anything below 100% because it's like they're spoon-feeding me an opportunity to not embarrass myself. That, and it would also be unsportsmanlike if they just spent the last half hour of the game passing around to each other. There's no integrity in that.
In a situation like this, if you're up by more than, say, five goals, the rest of the game becomes a "practice." You're going to work on different strategies and formations to see how they're going to equate to different squads later on. Sure, you don't want to give a lot of that away, because that can easily show up on a tape later for the team to capitalize on, but every minute is needed to see what works and what doesn't. If they score, that's fine. They're doing their job in their practice. That leads to this next point...
Were the celebrations after the sixth goal unsportsmanlike?
If you don't count Megan Rapinoe's slide--which, yes, I'll give you that one, because that was a bit much--no! Again, people, this is the World Cup. If I scored a goal in the World Cup, I would probably get a yellow card because of the amount of celebrating I would do. Let's just say that I would have been wearing less than what Brandi Chastain did after the '99 shootout.
This is years and years and years of hard work for some of these girls that are making their first World Cup appearance. Heck, I'm pretty certain that their first experience of soccer was watching Mia Hamm and Brandi Chastain and Michelle Akers back during the 1999 Women's World Cup. I was one of those girls too! While my ship sailed many years ago, those other girls wanted that moment too. They have it. Let them be excited over it.
If the next game happens to be a blowout or even a game that shows a lack of competition, we may possibly see a change in demeanor just because the butterflies are out, and most girls who have scored a goal won't have that honeymoon phase about it.
"They can't do that in college!" That's also college soccer. Different world.
"The men aren't allowed to do that kind of stuff!" Oh boy. On that note...
This is hard for me, but at this point in the post, this is my mental process:
Please don't make this a gender issue. Please don't make this a gender issue. Please don't make this a gender issue. Please don't make this a gender issue. Please don't make this a gender issue--
I'M MAKING IT A GENDER ISSUE. FOR ONLY A MINUTE.
Not like we have a major example of this happening, but if the men did something like this, would you respond the same way?
[Yeah. Where were they last year anyway? That's right. Watching the World Cup while sitting on their couches.]
"Oh, well, that's just the boys being boys! huehuehuehuehue--" NO. Stop right there. If the men did something like that, you would soak in every second of it because there's pride involved. It shows how great we are. Because the women are doing it, we're being overdramatic and unsportsmanlike.
"What does it matter whether a woman or a man does it? It's the same thing!" You say that now because that's never happened with the men. We as human beings enjoy a slaughter every now and again, but you rarely see women take part in that outside of something like UFC. Even then, there's this joke.
I'm done now. You can read the rest of the post.
The last time there was a blowout of this caliber, it was in the 2007 Women's World Cup where Germany beat Argentina 11-0. The highlights, albeit in German, can be watched here. While there wasn't as much in celebration compared to today, they showed absolutely no mercy throughout, and there wasn't a lot of backlash from this. In fact, Argentina, having only qualified three other times for the World Cup since 1995, has only earned a single point in World Cup play, and that was from a tie against Japan yesterday! Twelve years since that game! So now what? Are we going to be quiet now because Team USA weren't the only ones that did something like this? Be serious.
After being accused numerous times of justifying unsportsmanlike conduct during this game today, all I can really do is shrug. I don't see it as such. Were there certain sketchy acts committed during the game? Sure, but it wasn't the amount of goals scored or the first-timers that scored their very own World Cup goal. I understand where other people are coming from with this, but you also have to realize that you're allowed to disagree with somebody without turning into some version of a social justice warrior. We as a society haven't gone entirely berserk, but one thing we have become is overly critical of what is and what should be. They weren't doing anything demeaning in celebration, and to be honest, it doesn't look like the Thai women weren't taking the loss too harshly. Believe me, there are way more embarrassing things going on in this country right now, and today's game couldn't even hold a candle to it even if it was aided by 1000 tons of TNT or the process of how the Chernobyl disaster went down. But hey! We need more things to get upset about and argue about, am I right? We're just an angry, wild, and crazy country!
Best thing I can say at this point is that we're going to see some sort of change on Sunday for better or for worse. However, I can't say that everyone is still going to be a fan of what unfolds. Not everybody can be satisfied today, I suppose.
-- Stephanie
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