USA Week, Vol. 3

There are people that will tell you that soccer isn't an "American" sport. You should ignore those people. Charitably, they don't quite see the whole picture. Setting aside the fact that soccer only trails basketball and baseball in terms of youth participation, if we turn our sights on the most elite levels of the sport, the U.S. is clearly the top soccer-playing nation in the world and has been in the argument as such since the early 90s. 

Since 1990, only Germany can match the United States' four World Cup titles. The Germans have been more egalitarian, spreading their titles equally across their men's and women's programs. Here at home, the American women have carried the full weight, with their four wins including the last two Women's World Cups.

This is not, despite the way it's started, an American soccer polemic. Nor is it a preview of the 2023 Women's World Cup, which kicks off in less than two weeks in Australia/New Zealand. This post is a celebration of joy, faith and hard work rewarded, and good old-fashioned catharsis.

In recent weeks, U.S. Soccer has been chronicling the calls USWNT head coach Vlatko Andonovski made to tell players that they'd been selected to the 23-woman roster headed Down Under. From first-timers like Kristie Mewis, who never thought she'd make the World Cup, Sophia Smith, who's tearing up the NWSL, and Savannah DeMelo, who has never appeared in a USWNT match, to veterans like Lindsey Horan and Kelley O'Hara, the videos catch elite athletes in moments vulnerable and then joyous. It's the good stuff:

American women, fuck yeah!