USA Women Bring Home The World Cup

Let me first say I gave up a beach day Sunday to watch the US Women play in the World Cup final so I was very happy they beat the Netherlands to defend the title they won four years ago.

I will add that they clearly deserve to receive pay and bonuses equal that to the US Men’s team who has basically under performed over most of the last decade (and lost to Mexico in the Gold Cup final last night).

It is the women’s team who every four years in the World Cup or during the Olympics gets America excited over its national team.  You might have heard or read that Nike set a record this summer with jersey sales as players like Alex Morgan and Meghan Rapinoe have become stars in a sports landscape filled with them.

Most of us could not name one men’s player who took the field last night in Chicago because like in all sports attention is paid to the championship teams.

I was happy that the US Women came up winners on Sunday in what seemed like a home game in France where thousands of American soccer fans have traveled over these last few weeks.

There were a couple of moments during the World Cup that I questioned like the over-the-top celebrations during a 13-0 rout of Thailand and Morgan’s “sipping tea” celebration after scoring against England.  It wasn’t that big of a deal but a player of her stature doesn’t need to do that even if it was sort of a tribute to Game of Thrones star Sophie Turner.

The bottom line is that this team had a lot of pressure on them to perform and by and large they did which is why on Wednesday they’ll get a ticker-tape parade down New York’s “Canyon of Heroes” and thousands of young girls will be there wearing jerseys with the name of their favorite player on the back.

By the way the team was also honored with a parade four years ago in New York, whose own sports teams have not had all that much to celebrate in recent years.  Prior to that the last team to travel down Broadway for a parade was the Giants in 2012.  I guess it’s safe to say there won’t be a parade for the Mets this fall.