The US is home to a soccer revolution. All over the country, women get together to play the world’s most popular sport.
At the end of the last century, more than 250 million people in more than 200 countries played soccer, and almost all of them were men. Since the 1990s soccer has, however, become increasingly popular as a women’s sport in the US. This is largely due to the success of the women’s national soccer team, which, since 1996, has won the Women’s World Cup twice, four Olympic gold medals and eight Algarve Cups.
act local, think global
Today many female children and teenagers start playing soccer at school and many adults are getting involved in local soccer leagues.
The country’s most famous team is the US Women’s National Soccer Team (USWNT). It won the first ever Women’s World Cup in 1991, and is ranked first in the world by FIFA Women’s World Rankings. Christie Rampone is the captain of USWNT and one of the team’s best players.
The most famous women’s soccer player in US history is Mia Hamm (pictured left). Hamm scored 158 international goals, which is more goals than any other male or female player ever. She won the World Cup twice and won two Olympic gold medals before retiring from the sport in 2004.
CON AUDIO:
We are the Champions
Women’s soccer first became an Olympic event in 1996. The USA team won the gold medal and they have won the gold medal in every other edition except for one: that was in 2000, when they won the silver. The USA women’s soccer team is the best in the world, somewhat in contrast to its male counterpart. Women all over the United States are taking up the game. Joyanna Livingston is a typical example. She plays for the Gremlins, a team in the B Division of the Glendale Women’s Soccer League (GWSL) in southern California. In addition to the Olympic Games, 1996 was also the year that the expression ‘soccer mom’ first became popular in the USA. We asked Joyanna Livingston to define it:
Joyanna Livingston (Standard American accent):In my world, there’s two kinds of soccer moms. There’s the soccer mom that you’re probably talking about, which is the mom that has a kid that plays soccer. And she shows up and she’s got the orange slices and she’s got the cooler full of Gatorade and, you know, and water, and all the moms meet and then they support their kids. And they pass out snacks, you know, that’s a soccer mom, a typical American soccer mom. But on this league, we have soccer moms that are moms who play soccer. So I like both!
We then asked Joyanna Livingston why she enjoyed playing soccer:
Joyanna Livingston: If you get some good triangles and you get people just passing really well and it all works together, you just get a high off of it. It’s not even about scoring. I mean, scoring a goal is great and it happens so rarely that it feels like a million bucks. But when you get good passes going and you’re just talking to each other and the ball’s just moving up the field, like it’s a total adrenalin rush. Totally.
TENNIS, ANYONE?
But in spite of the success of the national team, women’s soccer has yet to become a spectator sport in the United States:
Joyanna Livingston: I’m trying to think of any sport where people actually gravitate to women more than men, and the only sport I can think of is tennis. That’s one of the ones where it seems to be pretty equal. But other than that, I mean, a lot of times, it’s not. I think people just think men are more exciting to watch for some reason. I don’t know why! I wish I did. I wish I did. I mean, I think about the women’s NBA. Those chicks, they don’t make anywhere near the kind of money and that’s because they don’t draw the same kind of crowds. It’s the same thing: you don’t make the money ‘cause you don’t draw the crowds.
And might this be a form of sexism?
Joyanna Livingston: Absolutely, absolutely! I think there’s sexism in so many places, in so many realms of today’s society. I was just thinking about this the other day. The comedy world, like, (do) you ever notice how like people just think that men are funnier than women? I don’t get that at all. I don’t know what that is. There’s just this weird thing, there’s just a weird thing, like that people just would rather watch men do things, but I think that’s coming from men.