England still has its biscuits in an uproar over U.S. women's soccer star Alex Morgan celebrating a World Cup goal by sipping imaginary tea. Plenty of others continue to stew about the perceived cockiness of Megan Rapinoe.
Few understand the enormity of the stage, the rawness of emotion, the unique adrenaline-laced chemistry that creates those snapshots in a blink.
Brandi Chastain does.
"As somebody who was caught up in a moment of joy, it's very difficult to know what your emotions will be in that moment," said Chastain, whose penalty kick to cap the 1999 World Cup in front of 90,185 at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif., was punctuated by a knees-first slide as she stripped down to the most memorable sports bra in history.
"We don't shoot baskets every 24 seconds or get a slam dunk. It doesn't happen like that," she said. "Soccer's unique. It doesn't see a lot of goals. It would be a shame to take that emotional, passionate part out of the game."
The bigger point as the U.S. and Netherlands prepare for Sunday's final is the double standard that exists -- still. Consider what we accept from professional men when the cameras train on them. The crotch grabs. The language, clearly readable on lips, that would melt paint.
The sports world has made it so difficult for women to climb into the spotlight, to find equal footing -- only to rewrite the rules once they arrive. Applying a governor on emotions uncorked just once every four years because of a different set of acceptable sports norms is sexist, plain and simple.
That's not to say there aren't limits or reasonable measures of sportsmanlike restraint. To paint any of this, however, as the fall of soccer civilization is to ignore what men across the globe do routinely and without a sniff of reprisal.
When Rapinoe fanned her arms confidently and without apology after her two goals against France, the stodgy establishment gasped. Too many insist men's athletes be packaged one way, women another.
That should be a red card.
"Megan is a very unique, outgoing, confident, independent woman," Chastain said. "My mom used to say about my brother, 'He lives by the beat of a different drummer.' That's Megan.
"They hear their own heartbeat. They hear their own music. They'll choose things that are unconventional. Sometimes unafraid, sometimes unaware and sometimes they don't care. I think that's a very free way to live and be able to express yourself."
We say we want athletes to be honest and unplugged -- until they are. We move the target. We mangle the rule book. We switch direction as easily as wheat in the wind.
Chastain, though, holds hope.
"I actually think it's actually gotten closer to being judged fairly equally," she said. "That might be the only place we've found equality. Women's soccer is highlighted more. It's on TV more. It's giving a new population of sports fans an opportunity to watch."
Lest we forget and flush context away, this is the first U.S. team operating inside such a toxic and divisive era of social media, where gestures and nuance are dissected from continent to continent with the touch of a button.
Instead of respectful debate, we throw haymakers in echo chambers -- a world of whataboutism, us and them, black and white. The U.S. women's team is right or wrong with no room for mindful middle ground, right? Isn't that today's way?
Is there room to feel, as I do, that the level of celebration on late goals in a 13-0 rout of Thailand seemed a bridge too far, yet stoking the coals a bit in competitive games has been hijacked to justify hypocritical outrage?
If England and others use those American images as fuel to root against the Yanks, go for it. That's how rivalries shuck polite blandness and develop real and lasting roots. Come up with a clever goal celebration of your own, poking at whatever American stereotype you'd like.
First of all, score. Then you get to decide.
That's the rule, regardless of gender.
Sports on 07/06/2019