Category: Opinion

The End of the Breakers: How Did It Come to This?

Posted on by RJ Allen

The Boston Breakers have been a part of professional women’s soccer in this country for as long as professional women’s soccer has been a thing. Losing them is a terrible thing for the fans who have spent so much time and energy with them, and who will now never get to see the team they were building grow into something more. It’s terrible for the league, which will always face understandable growing pains but ought to be beyond this sort of thing. It’s terrible for the players, who have just had jobs, livelihoods, and any sense of security ripped out from underneath them.

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The league certainly did not plan for things to go this way. The winter was spent in negotiations to bring in a new owner, only to see that plan fall through, inspiring the recent bout of scrambling. Apparently, the decision was finally made to give up hope and accept defeat. That judgment cannot have been undertaken lightly, and presumably represents a sense of serious concern about whether Boston’s setup could be sustained in anything close to its current form.

The team was, after all, apparently drifting further and further away from the rest of the league on the financial side. Their home ground was expensive and below league standards, the costs of operating in Boston are significant, and it’s not clear that there was any viable path to profitability, even in the long term. In a world increasingly defined by a split between ‘big’ and ‘small’ teams, Boston looked increasingly like an outlier. Eventually, something was going to have to give.

But there is a huge difference between a managed relocation—undertaken during the offseason with plenty of time to smooth out the effects—and abrupt closure less than a month before preseason was scheduled to begin.

As it stands, Boston is shuttering its doors a mere week after participating in the draft. In many ways, that’s the most heartbreaking part of the whole mess. To hold out the promise of a new career, only to yank it away the following week, feels particularly cruel. And then there are the other players, who have suddenly been cut adrift. Will the league step in to expand roster sizes and disperse these players across the other nine teams? Will they simply become free agents, desperately searching for a European club who will take them before the transfer window closes next week? To force these questions onto players at this point in the year is unconscionable.

Faced with all this, one can’t help but wonder who is to blame. That’s a difficult subject, and we certainly need to exercise some caution. Situations like these are often far more complex than it seems from the outside, and it’s important to remember just how little we actually know so far. Moreover, while the natural inclination is to look for villains, it’s also important to remember that no one wanted this, and that no solution was going to be a perfect one. Everyone involved was likely wary of creating a moral hazard—incentivizing financially risky behavior by providing bailouts—or taking on responsibilities that could ultimately sink the league as a whole. We certainly have had experience with other professional leagues sagging under the weight of commitments that couldn’t be matched. Those are legitimate concerns, and as more details emerge, it’s possible that we will find out why some of the obvious stopgap measures weren’t taken.

All that said, it’s not so early that we can’t draw at least a few initial conclusions.

First and foremost, while this was obviously not the preferred solution for the league, it’s a massive indictment of their ability to successfully manage a known problem and avoid the worst result. Why did the negotiations break down? What were the sticking points? Why did they drag on so long—to the point where a failure to reach a deal would make pursuing other options impossible? Why weren’t secondary choices cultivated? Was there any consideration of a single-year stopgap alternative? Could the league not cobble together the funds to cover a final year and enable an orderly transition in October? Who ultimately was in charge of these decisions? Amanda Duffy is the league’s Managing Director of Operations, and presumably the buck stops with her. But would things have been any different if the league had a genuine Commissioner? There may be good answers to all these questions, or there may not be. But it is certainly fair to expect answers. Perhaps not immediately, but at some point.

Second, there should be serious and probing questions asked of US Soccer. As an organization, they are sitting on well north of $100 million dollars. While no one expects them to invest all of that money into the league, it would take a very small percentage to inject a little stability. Obviously, US Soccer is in a state of flux at the moment, with new elections coming down the pike. But that is hardly an excuse. If anything, it ought to clarify the situation more. As an institution, US Soccer claims to value women’s soccer, and claims to care about the league. Why weren’t those words backed up by action here?

Some might also wonder whether A+E (not just an investor, but an active partner with the league) might have done more. This is a company with a total estimated value of well over $20 billion. Obviously, no one expects them to throw good money after bad, but it’s not difficult to make the case that losing Boston right now will do enough long-term harm that it would be well worth paying a smaller upfront cost to keep them afloat. One of the big selling points of bringing in a big player like A+E was supposed to be that they would have liquid capital available to smooth over situations like this. Why didn’t that make a difference?

Again, I don’t ask these questions in order to suggest that there was any single obvious solution, or to suggest that any particular actor was entirely responsible. While US Soccer and the league have a lot to answer for, we shouldn’t necessarily assume the very worst. That said, neither should we assume the best. This is a bad situation, and it’s important to hold those decision-makers who brought us to this point responsible, if only to help prevent another similar crisis from happening the next time around.

Tonight, my heart goes out to the Boston Breakers family. You deserved better.

It’s The World’s Game – We Should Treat It As Such

Posted on by RJ Allen

When it was announced that John Herdman would be leaving his position as the head coach of the Canadian Women’s National Team to head the Canadian Men’s Team the soccer media world erupted. ‘How could he do that?, Was the team aware?, Does that man have any loyalty?’ were just a few of the shouts that could be heard throughout social media. But this article has nothing to do with any of those things. In fact, I could care less about the kind of man John Herdman is and the effects that his leaving will have on the CanWNT. Mainly, because I believe that the Canadian Women will continue to be an insanely talented and strong team without Herdman. But also because Herdman going from the women’s game to the men’s says something much bigger about the beautiful game:

Men’s soccer and women’s soccer have a lot more in common than the fans and media are willing to acknowledge.

I never realized how segregated the WoSo and BroSo fan bases were until I started writing for Backline Soccer. I am definitely in the minority at Backline as someone who watches both women’s and men’s soccer. Compile that with the fact that I watch the leagues both here and abroad, and that dwindles the group down even more.

And that is okay. There is nothing wrong with only watching women’s soccer or only watching men’s soccer. And there is nothing wrong with only watching a single league or watching soccer within the bounds of a single country. There is no right way to be a fan.

But the Herdman move lends to the idea that things can be learned between the two sides of the sport – that coaching and playing tactics can translate between the men’s and women’s game. It also begins to change the narrative from always saying that the women could learn a lot from the way the men play, to the narrative that the men could use some of the amazing resources and skills that the women have developed. They can discover and teach and share with each other – the monopoly on the evolution of the game is no longer a one-way street. It is a thriving metropolis with streets and highways, a metro system, and a railroad. Things can be learned and understood from both sides and globally.

I know that this is an unfavorable opinion. In fact, many of you reading this will vehemently disagree with me, and I accept that. But the thing that no one can deny is that although soccer is a game that is always evolving, the basic techniques and philosophies will remain, no matter what gender or nationality of the player is.

So what is the harm in reaching across the aisle and seeing what the other side has going on? What is wrong with experimenting with a tactic that worked for a men’s club in another league in another country? What is wrong with saying the same thing with regards to the women’s game?

There isn’t.

Soccer shouldn’t be consumed in a vacuum. There is so much that can be learned from not only other leagues, and other countries, but also from the other side of the game – the men’s or the women’s, depending on where your allegiances lie.

And I will take the argument a little bit further and say it would be a detriment to not be aware of what is happening on the other side of the sport, or in other leagues, and in other countries. Look at what is happening in Columbus, Ohio currently. Do we honestly believe that the NWSL is in a secure enough place to not have that happen to one of their clubs? What about the debacle of the USMNT not advancing to the World Cup. Could the men’s side have maybe taken a note from the women’s?

And if we only watch soccer that is played here in America we could lose on so much as well. Like, what makes Olympique Lyonnais so insanely well put together on the pitch, why is Fran Kirby so dominant in the WSL, or how was Norway able to make it possible to pay both the men and the women’s players the same salary? All of those things should be relevant to the women’s game in America. They are all things to take note of and evaluate. Because if they aren’t, then we fall behind in the evolution of the game. So if we are questioning why Morgan Brian went to France, or why Jessie Fleming is looking at playing in Europe over the NWSL, then we also have to ask the question of what it is that we could possibly be lacking.

And the only way to know what we are lacking is to look around us at what is happening in the game from a global perspective. From the perspective that we can learn something from all aspects of the game and from all leagues, clubs, and sides of it. The Canadian Men’s National Team did this when they tapped John Herdman to come and coach for them. They could have chosen a men’s coach from anywhere in the world. But instead they looked to the man who took the No. 12 ranked Canadian Women’s National Team to No. 5, and who lead that team to two Olympic Bronze Medals and a World Cup Quarterfinal.

What will he do with the No. 94 Canadian Men? Only time will tell. But his performance with the Canadian Women made the men’s side take notice and recognize that they could use someone like Herdman. It doesn’t matter that he coached on the women’s side. What mattered was that he knew how to coach the game as a whole. It wasn’t about sides.

Like I said at the beginning of this article, there is nothing wrong with only following one team or one league or one side of the game. In fact, it is the norm. There is no right way to be a fan and no right way for the media to cover the sport. But there should be an acknowledgment that the game does not simply happen in one place, or one country, or only on the men’s or women’s side. Soccer is the world’s game. And to discredit any portion of it is to discredit the game as a whole. Because this game does not live in a vacuum – it grows, it spreads, it evolves. And if we only pay attention to one small piece of that game, then we lose sight of everything that it stands for. It is a sport for anyone, everyone, anyplace, and everyplace.

Embracing the Fan/Media Conundrum in Women’s Soccer

Posted on by RJ Allen

There has been something on my mind lately that I can’t seem to shake.

I have a hard time calling myself a fan of women’s soccer in the way I call myself a fan of baseball.

Maybe it’s because I’ve been a baseball fan since my uncle, who lived just outside of Boston at the time, placed a Red Sox hat on my head in the second grade. The draw of Fenway has been an unwavering part of my identity since. Baseball gave me something to share with my grandmother, a staunch Yankee fan; a woman whose own father walked her down the aisle on her wedding day in 1952 only to leave the church shortly after to go to his car to listen to the Yankees’ playoff game on the radio. The then Brooklyn Dodgers won that game, by the way, 6 to 5 in 11 innings before the Yankees won the Series. 

Women’s soccer is a much more recent addition to my sport loving heart, though often my devotion to the sport feels more academic than passionate. It’s the kind of non-casual pursuit that forces my attention to be directly on it versus simply having it hum along in the background of my life the way baseball does.

I put on a baseball game in the summer and go on with my life, looking up from my laptop to check the score or to see where the ball is going when I catch the start of action out of the top of my visual field.

When I put on a soccer game, on the other hand, my attention leaves the screen only so long as to compose a tweet or write a note to talk about later on a podcast or for a piece I’m writing. My attention is more focused, more exclusionary to the rest of life.

If I were to be honest though, I think one of the strongest subconscious processes that drives my aversion the title of “fan” is a part of me that struggles with the idea of claiming to be a fan while I also act as media.

Soccer, women’s soccer more than soccer in general, relies on a network of largely unpaid writers who write for small to slightly less small sites for much of the coverage. It’s not SportsCenter breaking down the USWNT January camp roster, it’s the (mostly) unpaid masses of women’s soccer sites who have built reputations and followings for covering a sport that is often on the outside looking in at more mainstream coverage.

While the debate about unpaid labor taking over a job that should be paid will have to wait for another day, it is the most common model of women’s soccer coverage we have.

And that presents some interesting side effects for the people in those media roles. 

We are a (largely) self-trained group who do the jobs we do out of a devotion to supporting a game while often times paying for the pleasure of doing so. We are fans who felt a calling to help cover a game we feel is being sidestepped by those media outlets that sports fans would usually look to for coverage. While sometimes it might look from the outside like we’re fans who have found ourselves “in the loop” there is more than that at play. We are, by and large, a bit like puppies who might slobber a little as we learn how to sit, stay and roll over on our way toward covering the game in the way we believe it deserves. 

And for me, that is where a lot of the tension lives.

I am not a perfect soccer writer, nor am I a flawless as an editor in chief. I’ve made mistakes. I’ve put out pieces that were a little (or a lot) undercooked. I’ve signed off on letting pieces go out without first weighing their full impact. I sometimes open my mouth and insert my whole foot inside of it.

But I do try to be better with each piece I write and with each piece Backline Soccer puts out. Every podcast episode I record, I try to get a little better at stating my case for my varied opinions. I try to form those opinions based on facts, watching a whole lot of games and talking to other media types. 

But one of the dilemmas I face, more internally (maybe) than not, is how much of a fan do I get to be?

There are some boundaries I have no choice but to abide by.

No cheering in the press box. No asking players to sign things or take personal photos. Don’t get personal with the players. Be respectful when speaking with coaches and players. (It has been, on occasion, very hard to not ask, “what the hell were you thinking?” to either a player or coach, I won’t lie.)

But there are other boundaries that aren’t so clear.

How do you articulate your biases as you create content? How do you figure out what those biases are in the first place? Do you still get to be a fan of one team before all others if you cover that league? How public should your support be if you are? How do you turn off your fan brain when you are trying to evaluate talent or a coach or a system a team is playing in? How do you get others to take you seriously when you have doubts about how seriously you are able to take yourself? How do you report things people might not want to hear? How do you get verification that would stand up if you were questioned about a fact?

Often the answers to these questions aren’t taught. Each of us has to figure them out for ourselves. And it’s often messy. And complicated. And hard.

It is hard to go from just some random fan of a team or a sport to someone who is trying to cover it at the very best of times. And throw in no money and little support (more if you’re lucky to find a good site with a strong copy editor), and it becomes a battle of your will to do this thing against a viewership that can feel like a school of sharks waiting to hit up your social media the moment they sense a bit of blood in the water. Or worse, a viewership that just doesn’t care. 

But I have been lucky too. Luckier than a lot of people who decided one day this was what they wanted to do. 

Lucky that I have been largely welcomed by the women’s soccer media. Lucky that Sky Blue, the club I cover most often, and I have a solid working relationship. Lucky I have gotten to do player interviews where I think (I hope) I come out of them looking like I know what I’m doing. (I am still amazed I got Nicole Barnhart to agree to an interview, a personal high point for me.) Lucky I have friends in the media world who help challenge me and guide me and teach me. Lucky I have Backline Soccer and one of the most supportive groups working with me there. Lucky I have the Ride of the Valkyries crew to talk goalkeeping and Laura Harvey with (Side note: Harvey will never stop being talked about by Seattle people. It is as sure as death and taxes.).

I am coming around to the idea that admitting I enjoy the way Marta floats with the ball or that I am a fan of Fishlock or Zerboni in their “take no prisoners” style. I’m learning this isn’t a problem with me as a media member but just a part of who I am as a soccer fan. Having nerves before a big interview, not always feeling I know what I’m doing, those things are part of the deal too. 

I’m not sure I will ever feel like anything other than some nobody from upstate New York who has to try over and over to prove themselves. But I do know I am starting to slowly get more comfortable in my own skin when it comes to life and soccer. And that does have a positive effect on my work (I think. I hope). I invest a lot of time, a lot of money, a lot of mental energy into women’s soccer. I hope people who are not me and who are not my friends get something out of my work, both written and podcasting. 

I haven’t made any New Years resolutions yet. But I think allowing myself to be a little more open about the things I love in soccer without worrying that my excitement is somehow antithetical to the role I have in women’s soccer media might be a good place to start. 

So to start 2018 off? A confession. 

I’m a Raquel Rodriguez fan.

There, I said it. Feels pretty good. 

No One Gets in Hope Solo’s Way Like Hope Solo

Posted on by RJ Allen

When Hope Solo announced that she would be running for USSF president, two thoughts crossed my mind:

1) If anyone can turn a conversation in the direction they want, it’s Solo.

2) This will either go a long way toward rehabilitating the public’s opinion of Solo, or it will be the final nail in the public coffin of the greatest goalkeeper to have played the game.

After a month of Candidate Solo, it’s starting to become clear that the only person able to get in Hope Solo’s way, with seemingly ruthless effect, is Hope Solo.

Over the past few years, no one else has had so much success at tarnishing the image of the longtime WNT goalkeeper as Solo herself. At every opportunity, she makes the worst possible choices, as if listening to pundits drown her long legacy in endless hot takes about her character instead of her record and stats was her goal all along. When faced with what seems to be a clear and sensible path of action, she inevitably takes a hard left and veers off toward self-annihilation. And in her case? Taking the road less traveled has made all the difference over the past few years, as the world has watched her suspended from play in 2015 and then terminated from the WNT in 2016. 

Now, in her campaign, Solo continues to wreak havoc on her own ambitions.

There’s the interview she gave on the “Why I’m Not” podcast, which did not help her candidacy. At all. This is an interview where Solo manages to move seamlessly between important points about the future of American football with personal attacks on a former teammate, overly boastful sentiments on a second former teammate who is still teammates with the first.

Instead of making a case for Hope Solo as USSF Pressident, she ends up making herself look petty in the process. Once again, Solo falls victim to her fatal flaw–saying the absolute wrong thing at the absolute wrong time.

The tone taken in this interview is more akin to someone trying to get their name back in the press after a retirement in order to sell a book or shirt or tickets to a speaking tour than it is fitting someone who is running for USSF President. And while this interview was recorded before Solo officially threw her hat in the ring, she had to know it would come out after she had. Whether she ran or not.

Even if the host of the podcast was less than optimal in his line of questions and his own tone, Solo had a chance here to speak about platform ideas and details about how she would go about fixing the mess she sees USSF to be. Even if this was taped before she declared herself for the job, she could have framed the issues for her audience and given some thoughts on how to correct them. That would have gone a long way to show she has been thinking about the issues in detail.

Every interview when you are running for elected office, even before you are officially on the ballot, is a chance to talk about your platform and to make your case for why you are the best person for the job. Why someone should vote for you to do the thankless work and shoulder the enormous responsibility.

And when this opportunity came to Solo’s door, she faltered. 

But the podcast is not Solo’s biggest problem. A bad interview where she sounds more like a ex-player with a bone to pick than a natural choice for president is one thing.

No, the biggest problem with Solo’s candidacy is that she is unprepared, maybe even simply unwilling, to reign in her lesser angels. She seems almost hellbent on not only tarnishing her own own legacy but quiet possibly hurting the causes that she has spent years trying to champion.

I had hoped when Solo declared she was running for USSF President that she would somehow figure out how to control the part of her brain that seems to really enjoy putting her foot in her mouth. I thought maybe she would use a little bit of the relentless drive to be the best on the pitch to tighten up and to run the kind of campaign that would be willing to talk about overlooked issues.

But the campaign she’s running feels half baked at the best of times and utterly underwhelming at others. The rhetoric has been more vintage Solo than someone trying to be the President of USSF.

While not the singular authority on a candidate, their website should give some clue to the issues they care about and some vague idea of how they want to attack the issues they have identified.

Solo’s is both effective in the opening story about how her parents didn’t have the money to allow her to play in the Olympic Development Program but sparse of any real information beyond that.

Her section on women’s soccer for example gives little to no details about her thought process and what she plans to do if elected:

Become The Global Leader in Equality and Women’s Issues 

  • Achieve Equal Pay for the USWNT and all women in the USSF workplace
  • Push for the inclusion of women at all levels of the USSF executive and organizational hierarchy
  • Eliminate sexism and discrimination

While the push for more women in USSF is something that everyone should be on board for the details are left to our collective imagination. She also leaves out the league she played in for four years.

If the disappointment in Solo as a candidate was limited to an interview given before she was officially running, that would be one matter. But Solo hasn’t been the force for changing the conversation toward women’s soccer among candidates. Nor she has yet to put out any real plans or details about what she would like to accomplish if elected. She did take the US Soccer Athletes Council survey and gave her thoughts on questions they submitted to all candidates. Though details still are scant there. 

The one issue she has beaten the drum for over the last half decade is the better treatment of women athletes and upgraded standards for them. And yet when she has the biggest platform she could, she gives us a platform of 33 words, no details of how to achieve any of them, and more reasons to think she doesn’t have the understanding of how others perceive her.

When Solo entered the race, I was excited. I thought she could bring attention to an area of the race for USSF president that felt like it was being overlooked and given platitudes over substantial debate. A month later and I feel all the air has gone out of the room in terms of that excitement. I’ve made no bones about my feelings of her place in soccer’s landscape I still believe she is a first ballot hall of famer, the greatest goalkeeper in women’s soccer history. I don’t know if believing that Solo would be a force for changing narratives when she entered the race was foolish or idealistic. But with about a month left before the votes are cast it looks like Solo hasn’t learned how to get out of her own way off the pitch in order to be the force of good she often looks like she is trying to be.

Hope Solo is the only person that can get in Hope Solo’s way. She looks to be showing us one more time she’s as good at that as she is at goalkeeping. 

Who May Tom Sermanni be Looking to Lure to Orlando?

Posted on by RJ Allen

The National Women’s Soccer League off-season is in full swing, and it’s been lit. While teams around the league have hired a new manager, rebranded, or re-signed players for the next season, things on the Orlando Pride side have been fairly quiet. The team has several players using the off-season as an opportunity to play overseas. Monica is playing in Spain while Aubrey Bledsoe, Steph Catley, Rachel Hill, Alanna Kennedy, and Toni Pressley are down in Australia.

However, it’s not just six members of the roster crossing the globe–or as I like to say “Where in the World is Tom Sermanni?”–because the gaffer for the Pride has been racking up some frequent flyer miles scouting for players to bring to the City Beautiful. Here is the list of matches Sermanni took in while he was in the United Kingdom according to his Twitter account:

October 29: Man City vs Birmingham City

November 4: Chelsea vs Bristol City

November 8: Chelsea vs FC Rosengard

November 11: Liverpool Ladies vs Birmingham City

November 12: Chelsea vs Reading Women FC

A quick observation shows the Orlando Pride manager went to three Chelsea matches and two matches for Birmingham City which more likely means some of the players on those rosters were his intended scouting targets. Nonetheless, there’s always a chance a player on an opposite side played well enough to catch Coach Sermanni’s eye and make his shortlist.

Let me save you time, fair readers, by saying Crystal Dunn is not on this list. Also, let’s quickly recap the Pride’s international roster spots which currently for 2018 will be five spots. As of this writing, those positions will be filled by Marta, Monica, Camila, Catley, and Kennedy. The decision the club will have to decide is if Camila will be placed on the season-ending injury list as she recovers from her knee injury she suffered the last match of the season against the North Carolina Courage. By placing her on that list, the league would allow roster relief where Orlando could bring in an international replacement player since Camila is an international player. Additionally, with Steph Catley and Alanna Kennedy out of contract, it’s not a guarantee both players will decide to return to Orlando. Sermanni places great value on international spots, and it’s also not beyond the realm of possibility if Orlando ends up trading for another international spot.

On predictions sure to be wrong, I once again don on my soothsayer’s hat and present a list of potential players Coach Sermanni could have been scouting.

Meaghan Sargeant: Birmingham City  –  Defender

The 23-year-old defender has been playing for Birmingham City since 2014. Known for her versatility, she can play across the backline as well as in the defensive midfield. The Sheffield native has represented England most recently at the U-23 level. During her match against Manchester City, she was wide on the right side of the pitch, but after going down one player, Sargeant moved to a center back position. On the second match Sermanni witnessed against Liverpool, her role was predominantly as a center back. She played the full 90 both times and has been a regular on the starting XI. Her last contract with the club was signed February 2016.

Drew Spence: Chelsea Ladies – Midfielder

Veteran midfielder Drew Spence displayed her skills while Sermanni was observing for two matches. Known for her passing ability in the midfield, she could become the facilitator in the Orlando offense, yet working on her improved defensive capability would allow Spence to distribute the ball from the backline. Her physicality could be exactly what the Pride could use to counter other teams efforts to slow the Orlando attack. Turning 25 this year, Spence signed a one-year contract this past September allowing her to stay with Chelsea, a team she’s been with since 2008. On the international stage, Spence has limited appearances with England’s senior team.

Bethany England: Liverpool Ladies – Midfielder

Beth England arrived this season to Liverpool via a season-long loan from Chelsea. Prior to being shipped to Liverpool, the 23-year-old from Barnsley, England had signed a contract extension which runs to 2019. England is an attacking midfielder who could potentially fit into the role vacated by Camila as she heals from her knee injury. She has represented her national team at the U-19 and U-23 sides.   

Ella Masar McLeod: FC Rosengård – Defender

Ella Masar McLeod is no stranger to the NWSL. She last played for the Houston Dash in 2015, and as a proven veteran who knows the league could certainly be appealing to Coach Sermanni. An added twist for Masar is her desire to play for the Canadian national team alongside her spouse Canadian goalkeeper Erin McLeod. Unlike most players, the opportunity to return to the league for both players ideally in the same city is going to factor into any decision Masar will make. As for interest from the Pride, Ella Masar McLeod would add an experienced fullback who can also join the potent Orlando attack. Additionally, she played with Marta and could integrate into the squad.

Hayley Ladd: Birmingham City – Midfielder

Another option from the Birmingham City side for the Pride is 24-year-old defensive midfielder from Wales. Ladd joined Birmingham City from Bristol City this past September where she signed a two-year deal. Even though she’s a defensive-minded player, Ladd also is not afraid to join the attack at times, having scored once this WSL 1 season. Recently for her national team, she scored the match-winning goal against Kazakhstan from a free kick during the latest round of Women’s World Cup 2019 qualifying in November. If Tom Sermanni could work out a way to get Ladd in Orlando, she could be the physical presence the Pride are looking to add for the next season.  

Rachel Furness: Reading FC – Midfielder

Current North Ireland Player of the Year, Rachel Furness, could step into the Orlando Pride midfield to reinforce the spine of the squad. Furness, 29, has the talent to replace Camila while she is in recovery. Furness is a key part of the offense creating opportunities for herself as well as for her attacking teammates. Her contract with Reading runs through June 2018, but perhaps if Sermanni can work his magic she could find herself wearing purple in NWSL.

Prior to the end of the regular season, Tom Sermanni stated he would be focusing on finding international talent to bring over to strengthen the Orlando Pride for the upcoming season. He may not succeed in recruiting from the trip to the U.K., but the club and the coach were very much serious in being ambitious even with the limited amount of international roster spots.   

A Human Right’s Approach to U.S Soccer: Hope Solo’s Platform

Posted on by RJ Allen

Discussion around who will succeed Sunil Gulati as the next President of U.S Soccer has been intense, particularly since the current president announced that he would not be running for re-election. Ever since the United States failed to qualify for the 2018 World Cup, a few questions have been circulating: how did this happen? And how can we ensure it doesn’t happen again?

Hope Solo shook up the conversation even more when she declared her intentions to join the race.

The former U.S. goalkeeper has a checkered past with both U.S. Soccer and it’s supporters, but Solo’s entry into the race deserves more attention than just her name. When Solo announced her candidacy via Facebook, she laid out a platform fundamentally different than that of other candidates. Her message was clear: yes, she wants to win matches. But she also wants to bring U.S. Soccer in line with principles of human rights.

Solo starts her announcement by talking about her own childhood. She talks about her own experiences with what has been deemed the “pay to play” system. She had to overcome a lot to find success—too much for most young athletes. It was clear in Solo’s announcement that her experiences in the youth system shaped her as both a player and a person, and will be critical to her approach as a business executive.

Unsurprisingly, Solo’s first point in her announcement was about creating a “winning” culture in U.S. Soccer. On the surface, this might seem a bit obvious. But the language that she uses is crucially different from that of her opponents. Solo proposes a focus on diversity in youth soccer as a path to developing a “winning” culture. By talking about diversity in this section of her platform, Solo alludes to the idea that the strength of the U.S team will come through its diversity. In fact, you could say that by including this statement in the ‘Know How To Win’ section, Solo is suggesting that everyone benefits from diversity and that U.S. Soccer cannot succeed without it.

Solo’s second point is about equal pay and women’s rights. She expands the concepts of equal pay and equal opportunity to the U.S Women’s National Team and all USSF female staff members. She draws on principles of non-discrimination, made clear when Solo writes that one of her goals is to “eliminate sexism and discrimination.”

The third point of Solo’s platform focuses on the youth system. She states that she wants to “address the issue of ‘pay to play.’” She wants to make soccer financially accessible to all, and demands socioeconomic diversity. This is perhaps the most intriguing point on Solo’s platform. From a human rights perspective, these statements once again draw on principles of non-discrimination, but also on the concept of a “right to play.” The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child states that every child has a right “to engage in play and recreational activities.” In this point of her platform, Solo places the responsibility to fulfill this right on U.S Soccer.

But this point is flawed as well. It’s not clear how Solo plans on making soccer “financially accessible” to all. The vagueness of the term makes it difficult to imagine what achieving that goal might look like. Is her goal to make youth soccer free? If not, will U.S. Soccer be giving out scholarships for kids who cannot afford even a reduced price? How can we truly ensure that every child is given the opportunity to play soccer?

Solo’s final point in her platform states that she will make U.S. Soccer a “transparent” organization. The promotion of transparency implies that Americans who consume or partake in soccer have a right to participate in the decisions being made. This does more to bring people into the conversation and to forge a genuine connection between soccer consumers and the U.S. Soccer Federation.

Earlier in the announcement, Solo alludes to the idea that U.S Soccer has a corruption problem. She asks how a “profitable” non-profit with millions of dollars at its disposable had not made soccer accessible to all. She also points to many sources of revenue and says, “I certainly don’t know” where that money ended up. Corruption is a difficult problem for anyone to tackle, let alone someone who is new to this sort of leadership role. Her allusions should be concerning for everyone involved in U.S. Soccer, but one might raise the question of whether or not she’s ready to handle that sort of responsibility.

Solo’s platform prioritizes human dignity over capitalism. She seems to promote a rights-based approach to U.S. Soccer not only because she believes that it will help their teams win, but because she understands that respecting and promoting both equality and participation makes U.S. Soccer a stronger and better organization.

But Solo’s platform still leaves a lot of questions unanswered. Her statements are vague, and so far we have not seen a clear plan as to how she plans to achieve these objectives. Considering her lack of experience, those plans are even more critical for her to prove she can do the job.

In addition, one must mention Solo’s isolating history with U.S Soccer. She tells a genuine narrative about her childhood and her struggle to get to the senior national team. But the fact remains that some U.S. Soccer fans will not be able to look past the accumulation of incidents that led U.S Soccer to terminate her contract after the 2016 Olympics. Regardless of what you think of Solo, the question remains—will her agenda be overshadowed by her personality?

Should Solo succeed in her campaign, it could have radical effects on the sport, both nationally and globally. In her announcement, Solo speaks of “shedding a mentality that is no longer acceptable” and “the importance of sports in the world order.” We all know that corruption and discrimination exist in FIFA, but Solo’s election could be the shove the world needs to start making necessary changes.

Minimally, one hopes that even if Solo is unsuccessful, maybe she can start some important conversations surrounding U.S. Soccer. Regardless of the way the election goes, she has made her goal clear.

“Soccer is the World’s game,” she wrote on Facebook. “I want to share it with all of America.”

A Higher Standard: The Issue of Professionalism in Women’s Soccer

Posted on by RJ Allen

For a little over a month now women’s soccer within the United States has gone completely rogue.

It seems like every day I wake up and look at Twitter and some new major change has occurred with the NWSL, USSF, or the personnel that surround it. Major changes happen in sports all the time, but generally those changes are planned out, executed professionally within a timeline, and supported with assurances to the media, fans, and public as a whole.

None of that happened in the last month-or-so with regards to women’s soccer.

In fact, the exact opposite happened – it was chaos, and question marks, and overall lack of care or due diligence. Frankly, there was nothing professional about it. But still, the Harvey/USSF/Seattle/Andonovski/Kansas City/Salt Lake debauchery was widely accepted as something that could and should readily occur. And therein lies the problem.

Let’s go over the facts. On November 7th it was reported that Laura Harvey was leaving Seattle to take on an expanded role with the US Soccer Federation. Vlatko Andonovski, the former FC Kansas City coach (and personal suggestion from Harvey), would be replacing her. This shocked the Seattle soccer community because Harvey had been such a staple there for so long. But it looked to be a smart move. She was moving up to a national role – one that many were excited about. The issue is that the USSF never stated what Harvey’s expanded role would be. What was her job, exactly? What would she actually be doing? We weren’t told. And yet, for the most part it was accepted. Maybe the details would come later.

But flash-forward a week and suddenly everything changed again. The NWSL announced that Salt Lake would be a ‘new’ team in the 2018 season for the NWSL. The team didn’t have an official name yet, but at the press conference it was announced that it would be one of ten teams within the league. But as a ‘new’ team that would make 11 total clubs within the league. The NWSL didn’t expand on that point, but merely kept the audience in a bit of conundrum as to what the future held for some of the teams within the league.

Close followers of the news knew that FC Kansas City was in a bad way, and that this Salt Lake team was less a ‘new’ team and more a transfer of franchise from KC. Except that this wasn’t what was announced. At the time that Salt Lake declared themselves a new NWSL team, FC Kansas City was still in operation. In fact, the folding of FCKC and the movement of their contracts to Salt Lake wasn’t made until six days later on November 20.

Then, just to complicate the story more, Laura Harvey was signed as the new coach for Salt Lake on November 27. Even though she left Seattle to take a job on the national level. Adding to the complications, her new roster would be the former FCKC squad–the team that her replacement in Seattle had given up to take over that job.  But wait – it gets better. When commenting on it, Harvey stated, “In some ways it’s funny. It is the ultimate trade. We basically traded spots.” You know who isn’t laughing? Seattle fans. Kansas City fans. Anyone who was excited for her potential impact with the USWNT.

Then, finally, on December 1, eleven days after the announcement of the club, Salt Lake finally got a name, after finally settling legal issues that had delayed the process. 

To sum it up: one city lost a team, two rosters traded coaches, the NWSL made announcements before they were ready, and no one ever will know what was supposed to happen with Harvey’s USSF position. And the worst part of it all is that no one batted an eye at it. This was considered business as usual for women’s soccer in the United States. This was considered acceptable for the league and the federation. And that is what is wrong with women’s professional soccer.

The NWSL is trying so hard to be the premier women’s soccer league in the world. They pull from the largest talent pool of its kind. But yet they struggle financially. And when looking at the women’s side of the US Soccer, they aren’t fairing much better. They are the number one team in the world, but they aren’t paid their worth. And in all of this are the players who are struggling to make ends meet, striving for a future in the sport they love, and supporting the platform for future generations of strong female athletes to perform on.

It’s exhausting. But it means something. So they keep trying to build. They keep pushing forward, and keep screaming into the void for recognition and acknowledgment of their worth. They fight to be seen as professionals – to be equal among other professional leagues and athletes. But unfortunately, the NWSL and the USSF have not been acting professional. And because of that, it holds back every female player just a little bit more. It puts a little more drag on their already short line. And it holds themselves back as well – financially, publicly, and in the eyes of the sporting world.

In any other league or in any other sport the movement of a top coach to the national level would have had more publicity. It would have had more concrete details about the job and that coach’s potential new impact. In any other league the movement of a team from one city to another is done with months of planning and preparation. Even if that team is having financial difficulty or there is scandal surrounding it. Look at the Columbus Crew in the MLS – everyone is aware of the potential move and there are really strong feelings on both sides. But in the NWSL? Nothing but bush league transitions, the absence of due care, and a total lack of professionalism.

So the question becomes, ‘How can the professional sporting world take you seriously, when you refuse to act professional?’

The answer is that they don’t. And it isn’t hard to see why, when moves like this happen without any explanation. It feels ill-prepared at best, shady at worst. It’s bad enough that they didn’t have an active Commissioner all of last season, but this? This is just off-the-cuff work that was patched together and came out looking halfway decent.

Now, most likely these transactions weren’t undertaken with malice or bad motives. But that doesn’t mean that they were done correctly. There should be a standard of professionalism. Things need to get better if the league wants to be a serious player, make real money, and change the way women’s sports are treated.

This isn’t asking a lot. They should want to do better and hold themselves accountable. They should want more transparency, in order to show the world that they mean business. They should want to show pride in what they’re doing.

Don’t the women who play in the league deserve that? Don’t the fans? Doesn’t the entire women’s movement that this league – and women’s sports in general – plays a large role in?

Don’t they owe it to themselves?

It can’t be said as to how the next season will go for the NWSL. It can’t be said how USSF President elections will affect the women’s game. But it can be said that in order to be taken seriously, you have to take yourself seriously. That is what should be asked of the NWSL and women’s soccer in the US. Hold yourself to a higher standard. The highest standard. It’s hard – no one is denying that. But to get to where the league, the athletes, the fans, and the media want to go it is a necessity. A necessity that should not be taken so lightly in the future.

Hope Solo probably shouldn’t be the US Soccer president, but it’s good that she’s running

Posted on by RJ Allen

To the average fan of US Soccer, the job of president is defined primarily by big decisions on high profile issues. Who should be the head coach? How should money be spent? How should resources be collected?

But the reality is that the job is far more prosaic than these big decisions. The president is not a dictator who can simply set policy as she wishes, nor does she necessarily exert significant influence over the Board of Directors or the federation as a whole. Given the diversity of interests at stake in the membership of these groups, the day-to-day job of president is primarily a matter of managing factions, massaging egos, and facilitating coalitions. Those are all things that Sunil Gulati – the retiring president – did well. And whether or not you like the ultimate results, there’s no denying that Gulati was effective at the job.

Now, with news that Hope Solo has put herself into the race to become Gulati’s replacement, it’s worth taking a moment to reflect on the job, and her quality as a candidate for the position.

Being a good president means more than having good ideas

In my day job as a political scientist, we tend to be quite skeptical of ‘message’ campaigns. According to their standard-bearers, simply winning the election will create a bank of ‘political capital,’ which will help drive the agenda through. But it turns out that winning elections is often the easiest part of the job. When the electorate is dissatisfied, the promise of ‘change’ is powerful. But once decisions are being taken about resource allocation, vested interests settle into their trenches, and defend their fiefdoms with equal doses of aggression and patience. A charismatic message can certainly win votes, but when the rubber hits the road, things get much trickier.

None of this means that the president plays no role in setting overall strategic objectives. It’s more to say that broad policy goals often falter on lack of successful management. Weak executives make for weak policy – something just as true for administrative entities like US Soccer as it is for political entities like the United States federal government.

Ultimately, this means that any choice for president of US Soccer should pass three distinct tests.

  • First, what is their strategic vision? What would they seek to accomplish in their tenure? Where would the resources go? How would the finances work? What goals would they set? What priorities would they outline?
  • Second, can they outline a plausible pathway for achieving those objectives? How would the finances work? Why would relevant parties be willing to buy in? Do they have contingency plans where things inevitably go off track?
  • Third, do they have the skills to actually succeed at managing time, resources, and interests? Can they build coalitions? Do they have good social networks, or can they create them? Will people lead where they follow?

The core point here: having a powerful message is only one part of the equation. It’s an important part, to be sure, and a candidate can make a big difference even if they don’t offer anything more. Simply putting issues on the table may force other candidates to speak to them or even shift their position in order to head off the threat from the challenger. This is the classic role of the ‘protest’ candidate: there to make a point, not necessarily to win. But protest candidates rarely win, and for good reason. Failure to fill in the details in these second and third is a powerful signal that someone might be good for the race without necessarily being good for the job.

Solo is a better candidate than it might seem, but is that enough?

Taking that as a framework of a viable campaign, where does Solo fit?

On the first test, she makes for a strong and important candidate. Her statement announcing her candidacy was powerful, and spoke to a range of interests that have been overlooked by the other candidates. In her time as a player, Solo was forthright and aggressive about the need for reform in US Soccer, and she makes an excellent standard-bearer for that message now.

The question is how far she can push the issues. After all, everyone is already willing to sign up for platitudes like ‘equal pay’ and ‘fairness.’ But her announcement went into much more detail, discussing the problems with elite youth clubs, with profit-driven incentive structures, with the secretive role of Soccer United Marketing (SUM) at the heart of US Soccer, and with gender equality. That sort of detail is critical, and suggests that Solo is serious, at least on this level. It also shows why having someone like her in the race is critical—to call attention to issues that otherwise might be swept under the rug by the rest of the field.

But this is where things get trickier. On the second prong—filling in the details about how to produce the desired change—we haven’t seen much so far. That said, we are still early in the process, and there’s some possibility that a more complete picture could emerge. It is never a good idea to underestimate Hope Solo. We know that was true on the field, but her efforts behind the scenes organizing the team’s collective action campaign on pay equality suggests that she is more than capable of carrying that same level of determination and focus into the management side of things.

Certainly, the work Solo had to do to capitalize on her fame and talent compares favorably to the efforts of male players like Wynalda and Martino—who were provided with a far more established infrastructure.

Only time will tell here, and the proof will ultimately be in the pudding, but there’s absolutely no reason to dismiss Solo’s case ex ante. At a bare minimum, she deserves the same level of respect accorded to other candidates—few of whom have done much to establish their bona fides on this front.

Moreover, there is a case to be made for focusing significantly more attention on the big picture questions. The president has most control over the direction of the agenda, and increasingly less control as the details grow more fine-grained. Gulati has been a hands-on president, but his successor might reasonably chose a less directly involved approach—setting broad policy objectives while handing over day-to-day responsibilities to a cadre of bureaucrats.

Here, though, is where the case for Solo becomes quite rocky. The third leg of the table—capability to organize, manage, collaborate, and enable—is where her body of work ceases to be an advantage and becomes a liability. No one doubts her ability to fight for her goals. But the job of president requires a great deal of subtlety in the application of force.

There is more than one way to lead an organization, but the more diverse the interests involved, the harder they will be to bulldoze. US Soccer is extremely diverse, and leading it effectively will take a great deal of personal sublimation. To be successful, the next president will need the full range of persuasive skills, particularly if he or she hopes to institute significant reforms. Those vested interests are likely to resist, and fighting them directly without building a broad and durable base of support is more than likely to end in disaster.

To say the least, Solo’s history on this front is hardly encouraging. She tends toward black and white views of issues, bluntness (to the point of abrasiveness), and a commitment to speaking the truth as she sees it regardless of potential consequences. These are admirable qualities in some circumstances, but rarely the mark of a successful leader.

Now, it is important to acknowledge the role that gender expectations play in this conversation. Solo is a controversial figure partly for reasons that are idiosyncratic and specific, but it’s impossible to fully disentangle her personal history from the larger context of a social landscape in which women are scrutinized far more heavily (and less generously) than men.

Nevertheless, as a player she experienced several run-ins with the law (a domestic violence charge as well as an incident in which her husband drove her in a team van while intoxicated), not to mention a suspension from the national team after her comments in the 2016 Olympics. These are not solely the product of unfair gender expectations.

Solo has a lot to prove, but don’t count her out just yet

We will learn a lot in the coming days, and that may help us better understand where Solo fits into this campaign. Already, Julie Foudy is reporting that Solo does not in fact have the necessary three nominations to become an official candidate. If that bears out, then this campaign will end almost as quickly as it began. If not, we will have a chance to follow her over the next few months as she makes her case, and responds to criticism.

There is no doubt that Solo’s presence in the race is a big deal. She is one of the most famous players in US Soccer’s history, a powerful advocate for equality and fairness, and a charismatic figure in her own way. The question is whether she can draw on those strengths and overcome her weaknesses. There is a lot of baggage in her record, and it will take serious effort to exhibit the grace, poise, and skill needed for the job.

At the moment, I remain skeptical. But I have also learned that it’s rarely a good idea to bet against Hope Solo. So I am excited to see what she has to offer.

Raising the Game: Solo for President

Posted on by RJ Allen

In the early hours of Friday morning Hope Solo announced her candidacy for US Soccer Federation President.

She isn’t the right person for the job. In fact, she is the exact wrong person for the job. She is controversial, polarizing, and has an extreme lack of filter in rather inopportune moments. She should not be elected to the position.

But that does not mean that her candidacy is meaningless. It actually may be the most important and game-changing event that has happened in this race. And Solo running may create more influence on the future of the US Soccer than any other candidate ever has.

Why is that? Well, because she is Hope Solo.

Solo is loud. She is demanding. And she is captivating. Whether you love her or you hate her (because there is no in between) she forces you to sit up and listen when she speaks. And she is looking to speak as a candidate. And the issues that she wants to speak about with regards to US Soccer are pertinent. They are issues that other candidates don’t want to touch. They are issues that many candidates don’t have answers to. But they are issues that Solo will refuse to shy away from – ones that she has no problem bringing to the forefront.

Her candidacy looks to bring awareness to what is clearly being ignored. And her voice speaks for those that do not have a platform – the underprivileged, the minorities, the underdogs. Because Solo has had a very different upbringing than most of her US counterparts. She didn’t grow up with money. And that fact makes her realize better than anyone else how hard it is to develop your soccer skills in the US when you don’t come from an upper middle class family. She understands the struggle of young players who are good enough to play, but whose families don’t have extra thousands of dollars every year to allow them to do so. She has a stance on pay for play, and she recognizes the disparages between the classes and how that effects the talent pool for the sport. Other candidates cannot say the same.

She also gets to speak from first hand experience to the inequalities that women face in the soccer world. She has been a part of the major lawsuits. She has lived the life of a female athlete on the National level. And she knows exactly how differently she was treated in comparison to the men. No other candidate brings that. And for the most part, no other candidate really has any concrete ideas on how to improve the women’s side of US Soccer. But you best believe that Solo does.

The greatest thing that Solo brings to the table though is her ability to get the other candidates to talk and give their opinions. They have been good at dodging anything really concrete so far, but Solo will demand it of them. She can get answers from them – answers that we all want, but may not have been able to get without her. Because she will take a stance on the issues. They may not be the best stances, or the ones that US Soccer needs, but they will put the other candidates on notice to do the same. If they don’t…well, she’s Hope Solo – she’s never afraid to call anyone out.

And that is probably her biggest downfall as a candidate. It’s why she shouldn’t be the head of the US Soccer Federation. Tact isn’t always her strong suit. When her emotions run high she tends to say the wrong thing. She fails to have the ability to take a breath, compose herself, and think of the consequences before speaking. She just reacts. And she was the bad girl of the soccer world for a reason – she didn’t care who it was, if she had beef she would say something. Brandi Chastain. The Swedish National Team. And even the US Soccer Federation on a few occasions. Mirror that with her antics off the pitch and it becomes even more difficult to make a case to support her candidacy. It could create issues with other Federations and with the cohesiveness of ours. It could throw us into chaos in a worst-case scenario. It could set us back.

Yes, her election to USSF President could have momentous repercussions, but her candidacy could also usher in a new level of meaning to the position. One where the candidate must have thoughts, and take stances, and be able to communicate the steps to achieve their visions for the future of the Federation. It wouldn’t just be a popularity contest or a contest to see who has the biggest bank account. No, her candidacy helps ensure that this race means something. Her candidacy holds the rest of the candidates accountable.

And that was all done simply by her throwing her hat in the ring. Because she is Hope Solo. She has always demanded excellence of herself. So there is no doubt that she will demand excellence from her competition as well. The stakes were already high. But she just raised them.

The Beautiful Games: France vs. Germany 2015

Posted on by RJ Allen

This series will look at some of the biggest games in the women’s soccer world. Rather than simply recapping the score line, these articles will look at the beating pulse of each match. For the first article, I’ll take you back to the 2015 Women’s World Cup and the meeting of Europe’s powerhouses.

It easily could have been the final. But thanks to the luck of the draw, Germany and France met in the quarterfinals of the 2015 Women’s World Cup. Germany looked like title contenders—not surprising for a team that dominated Europe for 20 years. France was also looking surprisingly strong, desperate to take home the first major trophy for their country.

But French fans were understandably nervous to face the German powerhouse. Germany had won every European Championship since 1995. Meanwhile, France had failed to even come close to winning an international tournament despite having some of the best players in the world on their roster. 

 Whatever confidence the fans lacked, the French team had no doubts that they could win this game. Both teams were known for their physicality and you could tell from the first kick how much each of them wanted to walk away with a win. Chances were taken on both sides, but at the end of the first half, things were scoreless.

 In the second half, things got even more physical as both sides started to worry about how long this game would go on without a goal. Their questions were answered in the 64th minute, when French superstar Louisa Necib launched a ball from outside the 18-yard-box past German goalkeeper Nadine Angerer to give France a 1-0 lead.

But it didn’t take long for France to become their own worst enemy. In the 84th minute, as the Germans moved their attack down field, a ball inside the 18-yard box bounced off the arm of a French player. A penalty was given to Germany.

French fans hearts stopped. You couldn’t often rely on Sarah Bouhaddi to hand you a miracle, but they all had hope. 

Bouhaddi jumped the wrong way. The ball rolled into the back of the net and the game was even.

Both teams were looking for the winner, but as the second half went on, they looked more and more tired. In the end, neither side could break through and the match went to extra time. 

The French may have been tired, but they were determined. They started extra time in control, creating great chances that they couldn’t finish. Nothing was more frustrating for French fans than in the 117th minute, when the ball was crossed to Gaetane Thiney. She was one-on-one with the keeper, but an awkward bounce off her leg caused the ball to go out of bounds.

 You could feel the energy of that match through the TV screen. Everyone was tired. But they continued to play their hearts out, as physical as they had been in the opening minutes. Claire Lavogez dove for a header and flipped over a German player’s back, landing in a painful position but she got up. In extra time, Kheira Hamraoui took an elbow to the face and earned herself a gruesome bloody nose. She had to step onto the sidelines, but she just told them to stop the bleeding and get her a new kit so she could get back onto the pitch.

 At the end of 120 minutes, it was still 1-1. The match went to penalty kicks—the worst ending to such a beautiful match of soccer.

 In 2015, both France and Germany had some of the best strikers in the world. Their skill would be on display in this penalty set. Penalties were taken by the likes of Celia Sasic and Melanie Behringer for Germany, Louisa Necib and Camille Abily for France. In the end, it was 5-4, with only Claire Lavogez left to kick for France.

 A bit of context about Claire Lavogez—she’s young. When she played this match, she had just turned 21. She hadn’t received much time with the senior national team prior to the tournament, but had emerged as one of the most talented young midfielders on France’s roster. She had impressed a lot of people, clearly enough to earn her the final penalty kick in this match.

 She missed.

 At first, she just walked off. The German team stormed the pitch, tackling Nadine Angerer with pure joy. No one doubted the power of the United States, but many thought the toughest match of the tournament may have been behind them. It wasn’t an easy road ahead, but there is nothing more hopeful than a chance. 

Occasionally, they would show Lavogez amongst the celebrations. Her teammates comforting her or just laying out on the pitch, crying. Jessica Houara was the first person to hug Lavogez. Lavogez bit down on her jersey, clenching her teeth and trying not to break down. They flashed to her later, cradling her knees and crying while her teammates tried to console her. There were a lot of emotional moments in the Women’s World Cup, but this was one of the toughest to watch.

It was also the last World Cup match for many of the players that might be referred to as France’s Forgotten Generation. World-class players like Camille Abily, Louisa Necib, and Elodie Thomis would never play in a World Cup match again. And they would finish their international careers without a trophy or a medal to take home to their country.

It wasn’t enough, but this much was clear: they had given their all.