Going into this year’s World Cup tournament, the U.S. Women’s National Team was looking to secure a three-peat—that is, win their third World Cup in a row. Now they are struggling. On Tuesday, they eked out a tie against ninth-ranked Portugal in a generally sloppy showing, and on Sunday they face a challenging game against third-ranked Sweden. For fans, this is heartbreaking. In the past two decades, the team has turned out talented players, scored a victory in the fight for equal pay, and showcased a viable model for girls to become successful athletes. It would be miserly to root against them, and yet it might be time.

While the U.S. has been shoring up its women’s soccer league, teams around the world have been taking note. The U.K. franchises have started investing in their women’s teams, although to some they may be seen as second-class to the men;s teams. Women’s teams across the globe are tasting fandom and legitimacy, and to build on that momentum, maybe the world is ready for a surprise winner. There is no drama in dominance. For women’s soccer to truly become a global sensation, the U.S. needs worthy rivals.

In this episode we pose that theory, as awkward as it is, to Tobin Heath and Christen Press, who host a YouTube series called The RE-CAP Show. They’ve both played for pro teams abroad and for the U.S. National Women’s Soccer League. And they were on both of the most recent World Cup–winning teams. No surprise, they disagree with this premise.

“No, no, no. I see what you were trying to do there,” Heath says. “But, no, absolutely not. I still think the U.S. Women’s National Team are torchbearers for not just the fight to increase investment in women’s football, but for all of pay equity, globally. I think the U.S. Women’s National Team being successful is the No. 1 driver in our sport globally.”

Listen to the conversation here:

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The following is a transcript of the interview:

Hanna Rosin: Christen, one dynamic that I’ve been watching is: at some point earlier, most of the players on the U.S. Women’s National Team came from a small pool of college teams. Now so many more of them come from professional women’s teams. I wonder how that changes the dynamic.

Christen Press: Yeah, that’s really interesting. I think that we’re in a landscape that’s changing quite quickly. I remember when the first group of players decided to leave college early, or not go to college, our generation of player was shocked and horrified by that. Because we didn’t have that faith in the stability of the league quite yet.

And now it’s common, and I think that that speaks to how much progress we’re making at a league level. The NWSL [National Women’s Soccer League] is pushing really hard to set a professional standard that can put players in the position to play for their national team.

And Title IX, and the strength of the college program, was so instrumental in the success of the U.S. Women’s National team. And as that evolves, it does fall on our league to continue to help players develop and find the quality that they need to win at the international level.

Rosin: It’s kind of cool and unique to be you guys. Because you’re moving through this living history. Women’s soccer in the U.S. is changing so quickly. Women’s soccer around the world is changing so quickly. And you’re sort of watching it being built.

Tobin Heath: Yeah, I love that. Living history. It’s really true. And what I always say is [that] we’re kind of building the dream and doing it at the same time. Because a lot of the things that we’ve achieved in our careers, when we first started playing, those things didn’t even exist yet for us.

As Christen referenced now, the NWSL is in year 11 or 12, which is phenomenal. The past two leagues had failed. Hadn’t gone past the five-year mark. So, even looking at that progress, it’s really unique. Each World Cup, there’s a massive change in the landscape of women’s football—and women’s sports globally.

So we’re always curious to see what’s going to happen. I think the winner of the World Cup really dictates that as well. Between 2015 and 2019, we’ve witnessed the massive shift in the landscape. And the opportunities that you both just shared about that came out of those. This is the unique time to see what that next shift looks like.

Rosin: Wait, do you guys actually think anything can happen? Because it’s interesting, every article out there right now is about how the U.S. is going to have an uphill battle to win its third title in a row, because the other teams are catching up. And I can’t tell if that’s just juice to make the whole thing interesting.

Press: Oh, they say that every single World Cup.

Heath: Every World Cup, if you go back to any headline of every single World Cup.

Press: But it is also true. It’s both at the same time. I remember my first World Cup. The U.S. hadn’t won in a very long time, and they were still using the rhetoric: Oh, the world’s catching up. It’s going to be harder than ever to win.

And you know, now with successful leagues in multiple continents, the world is catching up when it comes to investment. And I think as the prize money continues to go up, it’ll only encourage federations to continue to invest, which is going to make the tournament better.

And ultimately the way I always felt, from my first World Cup ’til now is: Great, you want to beat the best. You want everyone to be at their best. We’re not trying to win this World Cup because we’re the most invested-in team. We want everyone to be invested. And we want to win the World Cup.

And then when you talk about the three-peat, it’s a really interesting phenomenon because it’s the same thing as when you flip a coin. Each time you flip a coin, the odds reset. But emotionally, for me, it’s unfathomable that the team could win three in a row.

Because every single World Cup, I would go in being like, It’s almost impossible for us to win. It’s so hard. You have to be perfect. You have to have so much luck on your side. You have to have so much excellence. It’s almost impossible. And then we would win, and I would be like, Oh my gosh. Like, that’s unfathomable. So to imagine doing that three times in a row, it’s overwhelming.

Rosin: Oh, you know, here’s now the big scary question. Given everything you just said, maybe it’s better—can I even say this?—I mean, I know you guys are rooting for the U.S. and I’m rooting for the U.S., but maybe it’s better for global women’s soccer for the U.S. not to win?

Heath: No, no, no, I see what you’re trying to do there. But, no, absolutely not. I still think the U.S. Women’s National Team are torchbearers for not just the fight to increase investment in women’s football, but for all of pay equity globally. I think the U.S. Women’s National team being successful is the No. 1 driver in our sport globally getting the recognition and the investment that it deserves.

I think we’re still the team, and the following, that is greatest. And I think we still affect the landscape of the sport the most. So I think, as much as we want to root sometimes for other countries, I think the best thing that can happen for the sport is actually the U.S. Women’s National Team winning again.

I think a lot of opportunity comes from that just because of who we are and what we stand for. But, like Christen said, with the three-peat, it’s crazy. It would be even more devastating not doing it, because then you go back to zero, right?

That’s like a lot of years, of history, gone. I don’t want it to reset. But yeah, we’ll see what happens. I mean, everyone says anyone can win it. I think, at the end of the day, it is the U.S. Women’s National Team’s to lose.

Rosin: Just indulge me, though, because you guys do debates on your show; give me one more round of debate. What if it was another team that won? A surprising team?

It would be so exciting. And then women’s sports would just take root all over the world, and so many people would be watching everywhere. And then even American players would have lots of places to go, and it would just establish the whole global sport.What do you think, Christen?

Press: I think the problem is you kind of need a bit of infrastructure to effect change, right? And so, England was a great example. Because the English league is doing really well, they have the opportunity to quickly move into large stadiums to capitalize on the success that the English national team had in the Euros.

And so, when you asked the question, I thought exactly the same as Tobin. We are in the position to make the most out of a win, because of the investment in the infrastructures that we have. Obviously, as Americans, we also tend to think that our news is global news. But I think the history of the team has been to fight for change. And that’s just been so ingrained in the culture of the U.S. Women’s National Team. And I do think that that is contagious and it has been contagious and other countries are inspired by the fight that we’ve been having and winning.

And at some point, we want that. The change that we’ve seen in our country, we want it to really quickly flood into all the countries. But I do think that, realistically, we’re in the best position to continue to have the biggest impact. And that’s just because of how many people cover it, how many people are watching in our country, where our league is, what stadiums we have to sell tickets and merchandise in—all of those things.

Because, ultimately, what drives the business is money, right? And that’s what’s allowed the U.S. to have the change and the impact that we’ve had—is the infrastructure and the business of it pushing everything forward.

Heath: Yeah. And I would just add that I think the worst thing that could happen actually would be if the U.S. Women’s National Team lost and, like, an England won. Just in terms of that infrastructure. Because they have the infrastructure to scale success, to Christen’s point.

And we already saw that with the Euros. The massive scale they made just from that tournament alone. With a scale of a World Cup, I think it would really revolutionize European football. And I think that would be a really competitive advantage, because, if they win, they represent all of Europe. And if we win, we represent, you know, us and our dominance. And that’s a whole other equation. That’s if we have a Part 2 of this podcast where you can get into it.

Rosin: Wait, but Tobin, are you saying it would be just as good if the U.K. teams win? Because they have this totally other model. And I know that you have some experience with that model, where they’re attached to these legendary men’s clubs, like Manchester United and Arsenal. And I also wonder about the advantages and disadvantages of that. Is that an amazing way to promote and grow women’s soccer? Or does it put them in the shadow of men’s soccer?

Heath: It’s a completely different model. I would be more concerned about it being very competitive, but a different one. And I am a firm believer in independent ownership for women’s teams. We’ve seen the success of an Angel City. I truly believe that if you’re under the same umbrella as a men’s team, inherently you’re always going to be second. That’s really hard to evolve out of.

And in the U.S., we are, for women, the No. 1 sport. And men’s soccer in our country is maybe No. 5? So I think that it’s more beneficial for us to be independent, because I think our sport for women in our country is No. 1, so why would you mimic a No. 5 sport in our country?

Rosin: Yeah.

Heath: But in the U.K., I think it’s the complete opposite. I actually think there is so much benefit for them to be under the umbrella of their men’s teams, because of the structures, because of the fan bases, because of the history of what football means in that country. And I think if they were to win a World Cup, it would be scary, the type of scale and potential that they could have within those massive structures. Because even if they’re second fiddle to their men’s equivalent, it’s a ridiculous scale.

Rosin: Oh my God, Tobin, but now I feel like that would be great. You’d have this thing overseas that’s this amazing giant-scale opportunity? We’d have our great U.S. team and go for years?

Press: Careful, it might sound like you’re rooting for England.

Rosin: [Laughs.] Exactly. You know, I’m curious, what’s the experience like from inside? I think what you’re saying, to be completely fair, is that that model works in the U.K. You can see why it works in the U.K. Our model works well for us, but what is the internal experience of being in a team that is attached to a famous men’s club versus the experience of an Angel City woman-owned team in the U.S.?

Press: Well, I will say my time at Manchester United was pre-Euros, and so I am actually hopeful that that club and most clubs have taken leaps and bounds. But I think that Angel City is also kind of a stand-alone, because it’s not just independent ownership; it’s female ownership.

And so the nature of conversations when we’re talking about player needs and team needs at Angel City—it is like nothing I’ve ever experienced, because I’m speaking to people who truly believe in my value, our value, the team’s value, and are doing the job because they want to create and amplify the value that exists in our sport.

Rosin: Wait. Can you elaborate? Like what was your sense of Manchester United’s approach versus Angel City’s?

Press: Yeah, I think that, like, to sum it up: It was this idea of investing in the women’s game because it’s the right thing to do is where I feel like a lot of male executives come from. Versus investing in the women’s game because it’s an awesome business model that’s going to create a lot of value for fans and for stakeholders.

And so, you know, Manchester United, they signed us. They knew Tobin and me. Our reputation of fighting for equity and pay preceded us there. They kind of knew what they were getting. And to be fair, they had a plan that they shared with us about building facility for the women and growing.

But it was the sentiment that we hear all the time. Oh, I’m doing this—I know it’s the right thing to do. I’m doing this for my daughter. It’s the right thing to do. And when you talk to Kara Nortman and Julie from Angel City, they’re doing it because they believe in it, because they believe it’s a great business move.

And they believe that we’re all going to rise. This tide is going to rise together.

[Music]

Rosin: We’re going to take a short break. When we come back: the 1999 World Cup that changed the sport. And guess what? Heath and Press were both there.

[Music]

Rosin: I’m thinking back to when you guys started. So you must have been pre-teens in 1999, during that Women’s World Cup, when there was an explosion of interest and the final was in the Rose Bowl and there were 90,000 people there, and it was a huge record. Is that the moment when you came to soccer consciousness?

Because that was a moment when it felt like everything you were describing was just going to roll out on the red carpet. It was just going to happen.

Heath: Yep, you’re absolutely right when you talk about this kind of golden generation that was part of ’11, ’15, ’19, all of those finals for the U.S. Women’s National Team in a World Cup. I was at the opening game in New Jersey for the U.S. Women’s National Team in 1999. Christen was at the Rose Bowl in the final.

If you actually speak to most of the players on the U.S. Women’s National Team, they were either at one of those games or have a really powerful story about that game. But that was the first time I think all of us opened our eyes and said: “Wow, I want to do that.”

Rosin: Wait, you were at the game?

Heath: I was at the opener; Christen was at the final. Obviously we didn’t know each other at the time.

Rosin: That’s huge. So did you think: Oh, soccer’s a career. Like, I can make money. It’s a thing I can do professionally with my life?

Heath: Yeah. It’s so funny because I was such a cocky little kid. [Laughs.] I’m still a cocky little adult. But it was the Meadowlands, and I remember being there and I came with my soccer team, and I was playing out on the grass. I had my Mia Hamm jersey on. We were playing pickup.

And I remember thinking to myself at that time—and I think I was 12 years old—something like: Wow, I’m good enough right now to be out on that field.

Rosin: [Laughs.] That’s awesome. That’s amazing.

Heath: And I think that having that level of interest and passion—when you walked into that stadium and you felt that energy and you looked out on that field and you saw an example that you believe that you could become—was so powerful.

And that’s why, for Angel City, when you walk into that stadium, gender completely disappears. And I think in that moment, what we all felt as little kids [was] that gender had completely disappeared. And this was just something amazing, and this was an opportunity that we could have in the future.

Rosin: Christen, what was your experience at the 1999 final in the Rose Bowl?

Press: Yeah, I actually have a photo of all my team and my sisters and me with my face painted. And I can see it in my eyes when I look at the photo. I was like: I can do that. I didn’t think I could do it right then; I wasn’t quite ready yet. But I thought that was the dream, that was the goal.

Honestly, when I got my first call up to the national team, I didn’t even know it was a paid job. I thought that playing for the national team was just such an honor and such an amazing thing that you weren’t even going to get paid. And it’s embarrassing to say that, but I think it’s important, because even our Players Association has come so far in educating the world on the business of sport. And the financial liberation of women is incredibly important for the social progress that we’re fighting for. And so hopefully there will never be a player that goes and has no idea that what they’re doing has financial value.

But for me [1999] was just heart eyes. Looking at women who are being fully valued, appreciated, celebrated at that level. With that many people there, it was life-changing because it was absolutely just seeing a picture that I had never seen before. And seeing the opportunity to do something, to live this dream and to have it be at that scale.

Heath: I will say, to Christen’s point, when I actually got on the national team, I wasn’t paid, because when I came on the national team, I was just starting college. So I didn’t even have that thought about being on the national team to get paid. And for me, it was just an honor. I wanted to be a part of that team and what it symbolizes, what it did. My first world championship was the 2008 Olympics, and I remember all of my teammates being so stoked that I was on the team, because that meant that if we won, they got more prize money—because I didn’t receive any as a college athlete.

Rosin: Oh my God.

Heath: So they were like, Yes. So happy Tobin’s on the roster.

Rosin: Can you actually articulate—just so people listening to this truly understand—what difference it makes when players get paid. I know that’s a crazy question, but now that you see people now getting paid, making a real living, what does it actually change?

Press: Well, it changes everything. We want the best players, the best athletes to do this job. That’s what’s going to push the game forward. And it has to be a sustainable lifestyle. You have to be able to dedicate your life to this sport and have enough money to live the rest of your life for it to be a truly professional sport.

Because when you’re in these We’re getting paid, but it’s not enough scenarios, which we’re still working through, you always have this distraction that you have to do other things or separate out your time and your days in order to make enough money to survive.

And I think that just decreases the quality of the sport. What we’ve fought for our entire careers has been that the next generation of players doesn’t need to have another job, doesn’t need to work when they’re done playing, and doesn’t need to worry when their career’s coming to an end, How am I going to continue to make money? That doesn’t have to do clinics on the weekends and appearances four hours away for a couple hundred dollars because they need supplemental income. That’s the goal. The goal is to let professional women athletes be professional athletes.

Heath: Yeah. And I think that’s kind of this new generation’s challenge that they’re going to have to navigate. I think a lot of our generation, we fought for every single thing that we got and then every single thing that obviously the future of the sport will get. And it really felt like earning something. And I know that’s a weird thing to say, but when you go from a model where you kind of start with nothing to a model where you win equal pay and now this is the first time the U.S. Women’s National Team and Men’s National Team will be paid equally before the tournament even starts, that feels like a lot of foundational earnings.

And now I look at this generation, and I think this is a new generation of professional athlete for women. And they have a new challenge because they have these individual brands, these individual endorsements, that really changed—like Christen said—the way that they are able to be as professional athletes. And this is what we’ve been pushing for, right?

But they don’t have that same kind of foundational sense of, like, earnings, which we had fought for. I think it’s going to come with a different type of mentality, and one that’s going to have to kind of evolve through this process with the U.S. Women’s National Team.

Because the whole of the U.S. Women’s National Team is greater than any part. And now the parts are becoming a lot more valuable. So how does the value of individual parts then affect the value of the whole? So that’ll be interesting—to see what that future looks like.

Rosin: Oh, I see. So what you’re saying is you guys had to fight as a team. Like, you had a reason to have this kind of solidarity, because you were fighting for such basic rights. Whereas these players are coming in with individual brands—probably social-media brands, endorsements, etc.—and so they’re very much individuals, and so their challenge is: How, then, do we have the solidarity?

Heath: I mean, individually they’ve already made, before this tournament has started, most of them have already made more money than we would have made winning 2015 or 2019. So our earnings really depended on the success of the team. And so it’s a very different mindset as a professional now, which, we’ll have to watch how that plays out.

Rosin: Right. Because you guys wouldn’t have even gotten paid unless you won. Like they would offer you bonuses, but the whole team had to win. It wasn’t about what each individual player was going to achieve.

Heath: Exactly. Yeah.

Press: And the interesting part of the conversation is: We had to win the World Cup to win equal pay, but did we need the fight for equal pay to win the World Cup?

Heath: Mm.

Press: And obviously, we’ll never know. But I think everybody that watched the 2019 World Cup could feel that we were playing for something bigger than us. That we had this external motivation that was so inspiring, so uniting, that I—I’m a spiritual person; I believe that’s why we won. I believe we won because we had a job to do on behalf of women everywhere.

Now we’re going into a World Cup and there has to be a different intangible. This tournament isn’t the fight for equal pay for the U.S. Women’s National Team. So what is it? And do you even need that external motivation to win this tournament?

Rosin: That’s really beautiful. I mean, what is it? Do you guys talk about that? Like, what is that intangible motivation that you think can bring them together?

Press: I mean, they are fighting for history with the three-peat. Yeah. I think the tricky thing is there’s what? Five players on the team that are really—

Heath: Really the three-peaters.

Press: Yeah, the three-peaters.

Rosin: So it’s they—they’ve gotta motivate everyone with their goal.

Heath: Yeah, the team’s fighting for it, but really there’s only a couple extraordinary individuals that would be winning three. Others, two, maybe one. But it's interesting. I love what you just said about fighting for something more. I think as a group and as a collective, you rally around something.

I don’t know what that something is, but I’m pretty sure we’ll see it if this team goes all the way to the final; we’ll know what that something is.

Rosin: Maybe it’s just for Megan Rapinoe. Maybe it’s just like a three-peat Rapinoe. [Laughs.] That’s good enough. It has been so much fun to talk to you guys. Basically what I wanted out of this conversation is to learn to watch these games and see this world the way you both do. And I feel like you’ve been amazing guides, and I really appreciate it. Thank you guys both so much.

Heath: Anytime.

[Music]

Rosin: This episode of Radio Atlantic was produced by Kevin Townsend and edited by Claudinee Ebeid. It was engineered by Rob Smierciak and fact-checked by Yvonne Kim. Our executive producer is Claudine Ebeid. And thank you to managing editor Andrea Valdez. If you like this episode, recommend it to a friend. I’m Hanna Rosin, and we’ll be back with a new episode every Thursday.