Trevor Noah is a soccer fan, this much we know. He made some great jokes about World Cup commentators last summer and followed it up with some powerful words on the Africanness of the French national team that won the tournament. He also loves to play FIFA and isn’t that bad at it (at least, he’s better than Joel Embiid).
But it’s rare that Noah actually welcomes a footballer onto his show as a guest.
Enter Abby Wambach.
The greatest goal scorer in the history of soccer with 184 international goals (about twice as many as Pelé) was on The Daily Show With Trevor Noah on Tuesday night promoting her new book “Wolfpack: How to Come Together, Unleash Our Power and Change the Game.”
“Wolfpack” came out on Tuesday and is based on a commencement speech Wambach gave in 2018 at Barnard College. In the book, she calls for women to forge their own path and not allow themselves to be dictated by a male-dominated society.
Check out the full interview here:
“Wolfpack” is Wambach’s second book after her memoir “Forward” came out in 2017. Her wife, Glennon Doyle, is also a New York Times bestselling author.
In case you’re too lazy to watch the full interview, here are some of the notable quotes and comments:
- The interview began with Noah started jumping into the equal pay discussion with Wambach, with the USWNT having filed a gender discrimination suit against U.S. Soccer last month. Wambach agreed with the decision.
“I feel like this is a true discrimination lawsuit they’ve filed,” Wambach said.
- Wambach mentioned the fact the USWNT brought in $6.6 million in 2015 compared to the men bringing in $2 million that year. While that statistic ignores the fact it was a World Cup year for the women and not the men, it shows that the women are every bit as capable of bringing in as much if not more money than the men’s team.
- Wambach and Noah made good points about the money poured into the USMNT and MLS when it first started in comparison to the money put into women’s soccer (USWNT and the various U.S. women’s leagues from the last couple decades).
“A deeper truth people don’t want to talk about is the amount of money that it takes to market and brand something so the supply-and-demand debate can actually make sense,” Wambach said.
- On risking injury and head trauma for the game:
“I think the women are like, ‘Hey this doesn’t make sense. We are putting ourselves in the same positions, we’re putting our bodies on the line, we’re sacrificing the same amount,’” Wambach said. ”This is not to slight the men in any way, this is to showcase how much I truly believe in women.”
- “Aside from all the arguments we can make for these women earning the same as the men, we haven’t even once talked about them actually winning championships,” Wambach said. “The women’s national teams is one of the most successful team sports in the world and we’re still struggling to get equal pay. It just feels so backwards.”
- Wambach said she dedicated her life to fighting for equality after she was honored on a stage with Kobe Bryant and Peyton Manning, realizing she was going into a retirement that would look far different than those other two legends of the game who would never have to worry about money again.
“That night I dedicated myself to fighting for equality, whether it be equal pay in my sport and for my team but also for every woman in every industry,” Wambach said. “This is a fight that is necessary and it’s not necessary just because women deserve it, it’s necessary for all people everywhere.”
- Wambach said her book “Wolfpack” was about becoming aware of microaggressions, “and then to have courage and language to be able to counteract some of these things we’re interacting with in our everyday life.”
. @Trevornoah gets it. Loved talking about WOLFPACK and the brave badasses of @USWNT.
Thanks, Trevor, for having me & for using your brilliance for good. https://t.co/Y1dHPKzF7b— Abby Wambach (@AbbyWambach) April 10, 2019
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