The curtain has fallen on another edition of the World Cup; 52 games were played and 23 teams fell short. Only the United States emerged victorious following its 2-0 win over the Netherlands on Sunday.
The Alex Morgan tea-sipping celebration is catching fire across the country, even finding its way to a minor-league baseball game in the Texas Panhandle town of Amarillo.
It was, with all due respect to Alyssa Naeher, the most iconic moment of the USWNT’s 2-1 victory over England in the Women’s World Cup semifinals. Alex Morgan scored what proved to be the match winner, ran toward the sideline and pantomimed drinking a cup of tea.
OK, so hear me out. I understand that Rapinoe has had an excellent World Cup performance thus far, and she deserves an immense amount of credit for helping get the U.S. to the final. However, when watching the U.S. play England on Tuesday, I saw something that I hadn’t seen from the USWNT all tournament: cohesion on both sides of the ball.
OH WHEN THE YANKS...
Note from the editor: This story originally ran in 2016 following the loss of the USWNT to Sweden in the Olympic Games. We've reposted it today in the lead up to the group stage rematch at the 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup.
After trouncing Thailand 13-0 to begin FIFA Women’s World Cup play, the question facing the USWNT heading into Sunday’s match against Chile was both how many goals they’d score and — uh oh — how they’d celebrate those goals.