Earlier this year, I watched part of the NCAA football title game on an alternate ESPN2 broadcast featuring coaches from Texas A&M talking about the game. It was garbage television, and I’m an Aggie. When I saw the NCAA women’s basketball title game Sunday night had an alternate broadcast on ESPN2, I was initially skeptical, but I’m so glad I watched.
Pernille Harder and Magdalena Eriksson are icons in the women’s soccer world, not just for their accomplishments on the pitch but for the way they’re openly gay in a world that isn’t always accepting of LGBTQ+ people. But even they have heroes, and this week they spoke with one of their role models, USWNT star Megan Rapinoe.
The USWNT just won a landmark settlement to end its long battle with U.S. Soccer for pay equity on Tuesday. On Wednesday night, many of those players were back using their platform to bring attention to another human rights issue: transgender rights.
For decades, U.S. women’s national team players have fought for equal pay for equal work. From trailblazers like the beloved 1999ers to the divisive 2019 World Cup winners, USWNT players have long battled to receive pay commensurate to their worth.
The U.S. women have won their fight for equal pay.
Megan Rapinoe isn’t hanging up the boots just yet. Following the lead of her fiancée, the USWNT icon is sticking around for at least one more season. Rapinoe re-signed a one-year deal to stay with the OL Reign in the NWSL, the club announced on Wednesday.
OL Reign Re-Signs Forward Megan Rapinoe to One-Year Deal
Are you the kind of person who prefers to respond to emails and texts with GIFs instead of having to type something out? Do you also love the USWNT? If you answered “yes” to either of these questions, then you or a loved one may be entitled to a plethora of new USWNT GIFs.
As a sendoff for 2021, the USWNT social team decided to do its version of Spotify Wrapped in GIF form. You might want to put a few of these in your back pocket for a rainy day.
The USWNT released 18 total GIFs for your viewing pleasure. The18 (see what I did there?) USWNT GIFs are as follows.
U.S. Soccer announced the nominees for its wide range of 2021 Player of the Year awards, and voting is open now for fans until Dec. 12. The finalists for the awards highlight where the men’s and women’s national teams are right now, and they’re clearly not in the same place.
Carli Lloyd’s final USWNT appearance is Tuesday, Oct. 26, in a friendly against South Korea from Saint Paul, Minnesota. One of the greatest women’s soccer players of all time is retiring at the end of the NWSL season to start a family, and she’ll have one last sendoff with the national team. To commemorate her final cap, Fox Soccer will have a dedicated stream — a Carli Cam, if you will — following her every move at Allianz Field, according to Engadget.
On Thursday night, the USWNT bossed South Korea around the pitch but couldn’t find a way through to score. The 0-0 draw ended a 22-game home winning streak that dated back to another draw with South Korea in 2019.
If the USWNT’s two October friendlies were supposed to be feel-good send-offs for Carli Lloyd, no one told Yoon Young-Guel and South Korea.
Yoon made eight saves to earn a 0-0 draw against the U.S., ending the USWNT’s 22-game home winning streak on Thursday at Children’s Mercy Park in Kansas City, Kansas. The last time the U.S. failed to win on home soil was Oct. 6, 2019, a 1-1 draw to this same South Korea side, a match that ended the USWNT’s 17-game winning streak that included winning the 2019 Women’s World Cup.