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A lot of people weren’t happy that the United States Women’s National Team lost to Sweden at the FIFA Women’s World Cup on Sunday. (Then again, a lot of other people also were happy.)
After winning Women’s World Cup titles in 2015 and 2019, many American soccer fans expected a lot more from the USWNT than a loss in the round of 16. Especially since the squad had reached at least the semi-finals of every major tournament they’ve entered since the 2016 Summer Olympics.
With veteran players like 38-year-old Megan Rapinoe and 34-year-old Alex Morgan not doing very well during the World Cup, Bill Simmons decided to post a special podcast addressing the loss and those two women in particular despite being in the middle of a six-week self-imposed break.
“If you take away that Thailand game, she has scored two goals in the last 17 World Cup games,” Simmons said, referring to Alex Morgan. “This is the striker. This is the one whose supposed to be the most dangerous player on the field. Who is supposed to produce goals and she hasn’t produced goals since the mid-2010’s on the national level. And yet it’s Alex Morgan. She was supposed to be the next one. We gotta keep propping her up, pretending she’s a superstar. She’s not a superstar. She’s really, honestly never been a superstar. She certainly hasn’t been as impactful as somebody like Abby Wambach was.
“So you have the team built around her. She’s gotta play. They play her the entire game, game two. The entire game, game three. She plays like 95 minutes in this game today. And they don’t score goals. And the announcers just won’t talk about it.
“It’s like being on an AYSO team that your kid’s on and the coach is playing somebody at striker and everybody is like, ‘why don’t they play Sally at striker instead of the coach’s daughters?’ ‘Well, you know, the coach’s daughter, she’s gotta play there.'”
Something of note that Bill Simmons leaves out is the fact that Alex Morgan scored three goals (tied for most in the tournament) and was awarded the golden ball as the Concacaf W Championship’s best player when the United States Women’s National Team clinched its qualification for the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup.
“Then you have Rapinoe who is 37 years old who’s just, unfortunately, great career, legendary, true legend, huge big-time player, and when you hit your late 30’s in soccer, it’s a wrap. She looked like Udonis Rapinoe, not Megan Rapinoe, and comes out for the last 25 minutes of this game and can’t do anything then misses the penalty kick.”