Megan Rapinoe ended her World Cup career in a way that was atypical for her and yet typical. “I just thought, you’re kidding me, I’ll miss a penalty?” Said the 38-year-old in a television interview; she had tears in her eyes and a sarcastic smile on her lips at the same time. And her usual, own tone, with a mixture of smugness, arrogance and frustration that this end had now happened to her.
In a crazy penalty shootout, the USA were eliminated from the tournament Rapinoe competed in one last time, to a shot that is basically routine for them. “I mean, seriously, I don’t know when was the last time I missed.”
The ball flew well over the goal on the top right during their final appearance on the big stage. She will play one more season in the American League, but that will remain a side note after this round of 16 that ends the USA’s era in women’s football. Rapinoe was the face of this more than ten-year phase, she was a footballer, activist, border crosser, architect of new structures, role model for millions and yes, that’s why the fatalistic smugness is justified at the end: Did it all really end like this, with a banal miss out of twelve yards, as they say in the US?
It seems all too mundane compared to what came before it. Rapinoe gained worldwide fame, the Presidental Medal of Freedom as her country’s highest award, but also widespread hatred from her conservative opponents with what she said and how she described herself: She once proudly called herself a “walking protest”.
In 2012, Rapinoe became one of the first players in US soccer to come out as gay. What is a completely open normality in women’s football today, a benefit compared to hypocritical men’s football, began with her words. For her, queerness was a topic to talk about, freely and euphorically. After the quarterfinals at the 2019 World Cup, on the occasion of Pride Month, she shouted “Go Gays!” into the microphones: “You can’t win a championship without gays on the team – that’s never happened before, never.”
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“Seriously?” Megan Rapinoe misses a penalty…
(Photo: Jenna Watson/USA TODAY/Imago)
Anyway, France 2019. It was the World Cup for Megan Rapinoe with her pink hair. She made it a tournament characterized by sports-political activism: Before the tournament, she and her US team initiated a lawsuit against their own association, which does not treat women the same as men. It set the precedent for equal pay, for global debates between players and federations about fair pay – and for Rapinoe it became a personal triumph over the most powerful man in the world. She categorically refused a visit to the White House in the event of victory during the tournament, Donald Trump reacted indignantly, saying it was disrespectful: “Megan should win first before she speaks!”
And Megan won.
Every sporting title was the basis for her as a political activist, her amplifier
The sporting achievements are numerous in her career, but in truth each title always had a greater purpose. They were the athletic basis for the activist personality she wanted to be. Ahead of the tournament this year, at a press conference in Auckland, Rapinoe explained an important aspect of her career: “If you don’t win, you don’t get media, you don’t get spectators, you don’t get fans, you can’t always say what you want.”
So can you criticize them now, after this close, but in the final balance also insufficient round of 16 exit from the USA, which will have small and big consequences? A relatively small consequence should be the end of coach Vlatko Andonovski, which is considered safe. Coach Vlatko was popular with the players, he was their most reliable advocate, but at the same time an inadequate outside playmaker. His preparation, his substitutions, his game concept, none of that was enough to be a world power in 2023 with a balanced women’s World Cup.
Just as Rapinoe’s football was no longer enough. A shadow of herself she was on the field. As euphoric as the applause was when she came on as a substitute, you could watch her play with irritation: balls bounced when accepted, crosses that were supposed to fly high bounced off the wall, her dreaded wing runs were able to stop even the otherwise overwhelmed Vietnamese. Megan Rapinoe, who fed her activist nature from the underlying feeling of being invincible on the field, suddenly seemed beatable, her turquoise hair no longer wild and cool, but somehow too flashy.
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A political voice in America: Megan Rapinoe at an equal pay rally with US President Joe Biden and his wife Jill in 2021.
(Photo: Chip Somodevilla/AFP)
She is thus representative of a US generation that wanted to be there again at a World Cup: Kelley O’Hara, 35, who also missed her penalty, is one of them, as well as Julie Ertz, 31, and Alex Morgan, 34. They tried to bolster her many talented young fellow campaigners by conceding, rather than slowing down, the public demand for the third title one after the other. In hindsight, that turns out to be daring hubris, because players like Sophia Smith couldn’t stand the pressure. You don’t have to go as far as Donald Trump, who reported immediately on Monday and blamed the US team for Rapinoe and her “left-wing crazies”, a classic night step.
Later on her final World Cup night, while Rapinoe was still facing the rest of the media after her TV interview, she revisited that last penalty, which seems so small and insignificant compared to all that she has achieved. Rapinoe said she’s now 38 years old and in psychological therapy, so she can see it as a sad ending but a part of life, albeit with tears in her eyes and a smile on her lips again. She has found her peace, she assured: “I’m ready to stop in many ways.” On the field, mind you.
