The National Team by Caitlin Murray

Author:Caitlin Murray
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Abrams
Published: 2019-04-13T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 15

“Okay, This Is Our Payback”

When the national team returned to the U.S. from losing the 2011 Women’s World Cup, they returned as, well, losers—at least in the most literal sense of the word. The players had just lost the World Cup, and they were disconsolate about it.

But when they arrived in New York City and stepped off the team bus into Times Square, they were shocked by what they saw. A throng of people was cheering for them as if they were the world champions. For the players, who were still devastated, the heroes’ welcome had a strange dissonance.

“The streets of Times Square were just absolutely packed,” says Heather O’Reilly. “It was a very bizarre feeling—it was this atmosphere as if we won, but we didn’t. We were being celebrated, but nothing less than winning was acceptable to us. It was an interesting thing for us to cope with.”

The American public, it seemed, had been reminded of the national team’s existence and wanted to talk to the players. In New York, they did the media rounds, appearing on the Today show, Good Morning America, The Daily Show, CNN, and Late Show with David Letterman, among others. Fans wanted to shake the players’ hands and take pictures with them.

“We’d be walking down the street and hear people screaming Great job! and we’d look at each other like, But we didn’t win,” Shannon Boxx says. “It was really weird.”

Even in defeat, the 2011 World Cup final was huge for the national team’s popularity. It was watched on ESPN by 13.5 million Americans, a soccer record for the channel. Getting people to watch was one thing, but the national team won over the hearts of Americans with their attacking style of play and their gutsy, relentless never-say-die mentality. The final lit social media abuzz and set a new record on Twitter for the number of tweets per second.

Other than Christie Pearce, who was on the 1999 World Cup team as a depth piece, none of the players had experienced anything like what they saw when they returned from Germany. The team surged back into the American mainstream practically overnight. Hope Solo, a breakout star, appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated and was asked to compete on ABC’s Dancing with the Stars. Everyone on the team was more famous than they had ever been.

At one point in New York City as the players looked out from their bus onto the crowd of fans who had gathered to catch a glimpse of the team, a scream came from Abby Wambach.

“Fuck!” she shouted. Those around her—startled and worried that something bad had just happened—turned to her and asked her what was wrong.

Wambach, with resignation in her voice, responded: “We didn’t win.”

It hit Wambach like a ton of bricks. She saw the response the team had gotten—a massive surge of fan support—and she saw the missed opportunity. If the national team had actually won the World Cup, how much bigger could it have been for

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