There is a refrain that I have been using in this tournament: teams are icebergs. We get maybe 10%, if that, from observing them. The other 90% is a mystery; not known to us, nor meant for us. And so it’s frustrating that yet again, a thread of criticism has started to unravel around the U.S. women’s national team, essentially, being too happy.
Advertisement
After the U.S. held on to a scoreless draw to squeak past Portugal and into the round of 16 as the second-place team in the group — a position they hadn’t been in since 2011 — FOX Sports cameras cut to players dancing, smiling and taking pictures with fans. In the postgame coverage, Carli Lloyd, a two-time World Cup winner herself, was quick to criticize the players.
“I’m just seeing these images for the first time right now, at the desk,” Lloyd said. “I have never witnessed something like that. There’s a difference between being respectful of the fans and saying hello to your family, but to be dancing? To be smiling?… You’re lucky to not be going home right now.”
GO DEEPER
Carli Lloyd's USWNT criticism a natural extension of her public persona
The public and social-media debate was instant and vociferous. On Thursday in Tamaki Makaurau Auckland, USWNT captain Lindsey Horan addressed what she called “noise.”
“For me, I always want to defend my team and say like, ‘You have no idea what’s going on behind the scenes, you have no idea every single training, what we’re doing individually, collectively, et cetera’,” Horan said. “So for anyone to question our mentality hurts a little bit, but at the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter. I don’t really care. It’s (about) what’s going on inside of here.”
There are two primary assumptions going on with the outside commentary.
Read on theathletic.com