Carli Lloyd will be or should be eponymous with the 2015 Women’s World Cup. When we look back twenty years from now, a generation of women players and even some men, pundits, media hounds, and coaches will describe watching Carli Lloyd as the watershed moment in deciding to take up the sport, changing their thinking towards it, or elevating from armchair feminists to full throated ones. Lloyd’s performance transcended mere mechanics of goal scoring, reaching abstractions of clarity of purpose, strength of will, and celebration of individualism. There I have said the dirty word, individualism, in the most team of team sports. In the annals of scintillating World Cups, Lloyd’s should rate as one of the greatest if not the greatest, irrespective of gender.
When the USA won the ball back in the 15th minute against Japan, Lloyd took the ball to the half line with Alex Morgan to her left leaving Japan’s high line stranded; she could have played Morgan through, hoping her speed would be enough for a one on one with Kaihori. Instead, the one thing on mind as she spotted the Japanese goalie about 10 yards off the goal line, was go for goal and she lofted the ball at a perfect trajectory and speed which the backpedaling Kaihori was unable to keep out of the net. The beauty of it was the shot wasn’t hit with a lot of power, it had a more deliberative quality, as if Lloyd had envisioned this in her mind and was confident enough she could pull it off. The decision was knife’s edge, failure would be labeled as glory hunting, success an audacity of unfettered individualism.
The USA had already a stunned Japan with a three goal blitz, with Lloyd on a brace giving her a cushion. The hat trick goal was an instantaneous gestalt of the attributes described above. Indeed, Lloyd’s strikes have those qualities down to her penalty kicks. They stand out. Big goals, big matches, big moments. Crucial header to see off park the bus China. Spot kick to send the German juggernauts packing. A fizzing run out of nowhere to flick the ball setting off an epic Nadeshiko tumbledown. A stunning turnaround from the tentatively struck penalty four years ago which saw USA lose to the same Japanese side in the finals in a shootout.
A low, low point with Lloyd enduring harsh criticism from Pia Sundhage, then the women’s coach labeling her as “a challenge to coach” and “so delicate, so delicate” despite the cognitive dissonance of LLoyd’s Olympic winning performance giving the Swede her managerial success. Sundhage might have started something. A chip on her shoulder, a knife of a mind, a cannonball for a foot, all coalescing into the fastest hat trick in history and a Golden Ball winner.
We have to turn the clock back almost three decades to 1986 to the World Cup, Eduardo Galeano, the doyen of football writers calls Maradona’s for a parallel. The player who had “bronca” set the World Cup ablaze sending England into a world of pain that has led to self deprecation and doomed fatality as generational hand me downs, and then a panicked Germany chased him in the finals as one would shadows, to emerge channeling Jorge Burruchaga and unleashing Jorge Valdano for the winning goal.
In Argentina because of Maradona’s World Cup, Leo Messi will forever wear an asterisk as the world’s best player and cast aside as prodigal son. They have not yet found a saviour. How can they? For one would have to have eternal sunshine of the spotless mind. To erase the memories of that second goal, leaving a wake of spluttering, heaving English defenders amongst them Terry Butcher flailing his legs in a futile act that would make Job weep. Butcher of course, was burned earlier by a magician’s mastery of sleight of hand for the most infamous of goals, for which he’s never forgiven Maradona. The Argentinian finished with five goals and the Golden Ball.
We will likely never see another display of that kind in the men’s version with players insuring their legs for millions of pounds, clubs litigating countries, and the Machiavellian serial fouling and body checks on someone remotely heralded as the next Maradona. But there is hope for the women, free of cant and the cynicism eviscerating the soul of the men’s game. This World Cup was hard fought and with few exceptions, clean and fair. The women dusted off and went on about their game with few grumblings. We are therefore left with the hope that we might yet get to see a follow up act to Lloyd’s mind shredding display. There are other ripples that should follow.
Women’s soccer has many enemies, few friends, or friends that make a difference. A tone deaf FIFA shrinking rapidly into a maze of corruption, cronyism, and back room vote rigging has been an inimical force in leading the way in objectifying them, treating them as experimental guinea pigs, and as tightfisted paymasters, driving down wages.
It makes for depressing reading. But there is hope that the US national team’s victories fueled by Lloyd’s pitch perfect gender mitigation will lead to a more level playing field just as the winds of reform blowing out from these shores might lead to a change in the FIFA leadership to a more receptive and transparent one. Maradona, before the paparazzi damaged him irrevocably with salaciousness and innuendo, was heralded as a pioneer in establishing labour rights for soccer players, in setting salaries, improving playing conditions, and allowing transfers. Now, of course the pendulum has shifted all the way to the other extreme, to a neo-liberal wet dream. You just have to read Raheem Stirling and his manufactured saga to realize why we bemoan the current state of affairs in men’s soccer.