USWNT

Allie Long, a veteran member of the Women’s World Cup-winning USWNT, had a rude awakening from the delirium of the team’s week-long celebration.

This morning, the USWNT received a letter from the 25 female members of the Senate, requesting a meeting with them to discuss issues facing women. The letter, which is addressed to head coach Jill Ellis, Alex Morgan, Carli Lloyd, and Megan Rapinoe, congratulates the team on its victory and remarks on how it has ignited conversation regarding women’s issues.

Back in 2003, Rose Lavelle was just an eight-year-old girl with dreams to one day be like her idol, USWNT legend Mia Hamm. As a two-time World Cup champion and one of the greatest players to ever play the game, Hamm was one of the most idolized athletes. Although the USWNT fell short to Germany in the semifinals of the 2003 World Cup, a little girl from Cincinnati, Ohio remained emotionally attached to her role model — Lavelle cried after the U.S. was eliminated from final contention. 

The USWNT victory party continued apace on Wednesday morning with the team embarking on a parade through New York City before settling down for a ceremony in front of city hall, which included a powerful speech from Golden Boot and Golden Ball winner Megan Rapinoe and a not-so-incredible talk from USSF president Carlos Cordeiro. 

It’s with great sadness that our summer of soccer 2019 draws to a close. The USWNT lifted the World Cup, Brazil triumphed on home soil at the Copa América, Mexico reclaimed the Gold Cup and we’re into the final week of the Africa Cup of Nations. Unless you’re eagerly anticipating the ICC, our glorious summer is at an end.

Let’s face it, women have faced inequality for as long as we have written history. Women’s soccer players are no exception. 

Today, the U.S. women’s soccer team — the No. 1 women’s soccer team in the world — has to deal with the reality that if both the men and women’s teams played 20 friendlies a year, the women would earn, at most, $99,000 while the men would earn an average of $263,320. That’s just ridiculous. It seems like some kind of sick joke, but I can assure you, it’s not. 

There’s perhaps no greater testament to the strength, drive, togetherness and badassery of the USWNT than the whirlwind tour they’ve been on since Sunday night.

Mere mortals like you and I would probably like nothing more than to curl up under a blanket and nurse a week-long hangover while regaining some sort of feeling in our legs after a month of heinous physical exertion, but the USWNT knows no chill.

The curtain has fallen on another edition of the World Cup; 52 games were played and 23 teams fell short. Only the United States emerged victorious following its 2-0 win over the Netherlands on Sunday.

The ratings are coming in from Sunday’s World Cup final between the USWNT and the Netherlands, and yup, they’re really impressive. Over on Telemundo, the game was the most-watched women’s match in Spanish-language history. The average total audience delivery was 1.6 million viewers, up 22 percent on the 2015 final despite the earlier start time. The game peaked at 2.03 million TV-only viewers towards the end.

Heading into the 2019 Women’s World Cup, the consensus was that the USWNT would ship its fair share of goals but overcome that deficiency by winning matches in barnstorming fashion — maybe a 4-2 here, a 5-3 there. This side was supposed to be the antithesis of the 2015 unit that conceded only three goals en route to the title.