The ladies, members of the United States Women’s Soccer Team, barely got by to advance in the World Cup, now being played in Australia and New Zealand.
Did they win? No. They tied Portugal, zero/zero.
Whoopie?
Actually, yes, the ladies did whoop it up after the game in a ceremony of dances, hugs, hi fives, and selfies, all because they are ingrates and spoiled brats.
They advanced only because the other team, drawing a penalty kick,, missed an open net and hit the post instead.
Back here, in the United States, soccer commentators were not ecstatic. They laced into the US women for sloppy play, and for celebrating failure.
As it is, despite Lionel Messi’s massive contract with Inter-Miami, and a million soccer moms, bless them, soccer is not our game.
But every few years, the world tells us to drop everything for this or that World Cup, and so we tag along as viewers…painfully awaiting the scoring of a goal…and meantime offer up our finest men and women as participants to achieve for us glory on the world stage. You may not be watching. But the rest of the world takes this seriously.
Patriotism…pride in one’s country… is on display from one national team to the next…except when it comes to our women.
At the playing of the national anthem, they turn peevish.
To illustrate how nothing has changed, here some passages from what we wrote July 8, 2021, when our soccer women took part in the Tokyo Olympics:
“They just wanted the game to begin and had no patience for ceremonies, and for that reason the few, or many, of them, if you ask me, acted without due respect…slouching instead of standing tall and proud. Frankly, they looked put-upon and miserable, as if celebrating America was too much of a chore.
“Maybe they were just bored. America, you know, no big deal.
“It is an attitude, some might say, that comes when people have it too good, too easy, and so get too jaded, too spoiled.
“Ingratitude appears to have replaced patriotism.
“Hence, the Activist Athlete is what we’ve got.”
We went on to say that “dishing the dirt” about your own family, home and country, in a worldwide setting, is strictly an American thing.
These Activist Athletes, then and now, use the entire world to hear their grievances.
“You would think that America, the place millions run to for freedom and opportunity, is the only nation on earth that suffers from imperfections.
“You would think that the rest of the world is perfect.
“That’s because for the rest of the world, flag and anthem are sacred. That goes even for countries where seldom is there freedom or opportunity.
“But watch them as they clasp hands and sing their hearts out for their own anthems. Lower Slobbovia ain’t much, they could be thinking…but it is home.
“What then, about this land of plenty, this land that so many love…but still, somehow, produces so many ingrates?”
New York-based bestselling American novelist Jack Engelhard writes regularly for Arutz Sheva.
He wrote the worldwide book-to-movie bestseller “Indecent Proposal.” NEW. A free sample chapter of his noir gambling thriller, “Compulsive,” is available on his website. Contemporaries have hailed him “The last Hemingway, a writer without peer, and the conscience of us all.” Contact. Website here
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