Just a note on overnight events:
First, congratulations to the world-class athletes of all four national teams who played knockout-round matches in the Women's World Cup Down Under. That goes for those who played beyond what anyone thought they could (the Netherlands goalkeeper — almost by herself — turned what should, on the game-long merits, have been a 1:3 loss into a 2:0 victory) and those who… didn't… but were nonetheless so much better than most of their critics that they were in a position to "fail" at all. They're all better players than I was.
But the US team was set up to fail by the power structure of the national federation. It wasn't so much "inevitable" as "predictable" after:
- Intransigence and insults, both implicit and explicit, leading up to the "equal pay" lawsuit —
- — let alone the conduct of both the federation and its lawyers during the lawsuit (the federation knew exactly what law firm it hired to conduct its defense and should have actually expected the kind of briefing… incivility… that it got — especially reading any deposition transcripts even as nonlawyers, and there are more than a few lawyers in US Soccer's hierarchy)
- A history stretching back over four decades of outright bigotry in how development funds and efforts are focused, personally observed when I "voluntarily disassociated" myself over certain "guidance" to and concerning early-career referees
- An above-local-level power structure that makes Chicago politics look clean and fair (is it perhaps no coincidence at all that US Soccer House is in… Chicago?)
- An institutional inability to admit error in hiring practices or decisions — or even in to whom potential-hire decisions are delegated
- An institutional inability to accept criticism reflected, perhaps most egregiously, in the way the three most-recent elections to its highest offices have been conducted — specifically including the identity of candidates and the identification of the "constituencies" candidates needed to satisfy/fluff to be "credible"
So congratulations, US Soccer. You finally got what you deserved. And, in the grand tradition of ethnic/religious-enclave orientation and (often overt!) bigotry in those "local" organizations that have had and continue to demand an outsized voice in both organizational governance and organizational decisions, you won't recognize that it's your fault. It's not going to change any time soon. (Hint: It's not "a commitment to democracy" to defer to small-time bosses and precinct captains and not to, ya know, the actual players; those bosses get, and even start out, coopted at best and outright corrupt at worst. Whispers of "AYSO" in the background are obviously too faint for you to discern — and they're just one of several alarming symptoms anyway.)
I'd make some snide remark about US men's basketball, but for one thing: The US women's national team has always been close to the "Dream Team." The players both now and historically deserve a helluva lot more credit than they've been given, both on and off the pitch. As to their purported "leaders" and "betters": Not so much.