They will now compete for a bronze medal.
QUICK FACTS:
- In Tokyo, the U.S. women’s soccer team lost its chances of Olympic gold.
- They lost 1–0 to Canada in the competition’s semifinal match on Monday.
- The U.S. team will face whoever loses the semifinal between Sweden and Australia.
- Canada’s Jessie Fleming scored the winning goal in minute 74 of the game.
- Canada’s win marks the nation’s first victory over the U.S. women’s team in 20 years.
WHAT RAPINOE SAID:
- “It’s terrible,” said U.S. player Megan Rapinoe. “We just didn’t have it today. Just too many errors from us again. I felt like the space was there for us to play and we just couldn’t get into it too many touches or, you know, an errant touch. That’s football.”
- “[I]t’s a bitter one to swallow,” Rapinoe went on to say. “Obviously we never want to lose to Canada. I don’t think I’ve ever lost Canada. So it’s a bitter one. Obviously there’s still a lot to compete for. That’s what I told the girls and what we talked about in the huddle. It’s not the color we want, but there’s still a medal on the line. That’s a huge thing and we want to win that game, but yeah, this is … this sucks. It sucks.”
BACKGROUND:
- Megan Rapinoe has been described as a “great” athlete but “needlessly, selfishly divisive.”
- She’s also recently been described as a “woke warrior” for her outspokenness and support of left-leaning political issues.
- She’s said that America was “founded on slavery,” according to The Wall Street Journal, a notion popular among proponents of Critical Race Theory (CRT) and the “1619 Project.”
- Rapinoe—the co-captain of the U.S. national women’s soccer team—refused to place her hand over her heart with the rest of her team when the anthem was played at the World Cup in Lyon, France, according to The New York Post.
- She took a knee at the opening matches of the Tokyo Olympics to protest social issues in America ahead of the team’s match against Sweden. Rapinoe and team went on to lose that match.
- Rapinoe’s protests are seen by conservative commentators as sending “the message that her differences with her country are irreconcilable to the point she, even on the grandest global stage of them all, cannot set them aside.”
- The commentators go on to say that only “extreme culture warriors honestly believe institutions like U.S. Soccer can solve all the world’s problems. They’re not policymakers nor partisan institutions. They exist solely to regulate a game beloved by millions around the world, entertain and, hopefully, unite a world in a shared passion.”
- “For that unity to manifest, players must be willing to set aside their differences when walking onto the pitch. Representing all Americans includes representing those they don’t see eye-to-eye with.”
