Woke US Women's Soccer Team Pummeled at Olympics after Kneeling Before Game
Team USA beat 3-0 by Sweden, ending 44-game winning streak
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The "woke" U.S. women’s soccer team was pummeled by Sweden in a devastating 3-0 loss on Wednesday morning at the Tokyo Olympics after players took a knee in protest against America.
The defeat suffered during their opening game was a crushing loss for Team USA, breaking the USWNT's 44-game winning streak.
Before the game commenced, all 22 players on Team USA took a knee in solidarity with the radical leftist group Black Lives Matter.
The Marxist protest has become a major point of contention with U.S. fans.
Although in past Olympics, protests were not allowed, this year, players are allowed to protest before or after an event, although not during competitions.
The United States came into the Tokyo Games with the number one ranking in the world.
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Sweden is ranked fifth in the world and notably knocked out Team USA on penalty kicks in the 2016 Olympics in the quarterfinals.
The two teams last paired off in April, which resulted in a 1-1 draw, the only game the U.S. women had not won since January 2019.
In covering the game for The New York Times, Andrew Das wrote in summing up the first half, where Swede took a 1-0 lead, “If it feels unusual to watch the United States get bossed around for a half, well, it should.
"It doesn’t happen often.”
“[T]he U.S. attack has been invisible, and because of that the defense just can’t seem to get its footing and shrug off the pressure, which has been relentless,” he wrote.
After Sweden scored its third goal, fellow Times reporter Andrew Keh wrote, “Sweden is in complete control, after all.
"This feels out of reach for the United States and will be a stunning result for a team widely expected to win the gold medal.”
Megan Rapinoe told the Times that as she watched the first half from the bench, she wanted “to put a mirror in front of everyone and say: ‘Relax. We’re good.’”
“We got our a–es kicked, didn’t we?” Rapinoe said after the game, according to NBC Sports.
"I thought we were a little tight, a little nervous, just doing dumb stuff."
Rapinoe was among the leaders in pushing for players to kneel before games as a sign of protest.
In a June interview with NPR, Rapinmoe was asked what the flag and nation meant to her.
“I see American pride or at least my personal pride or what I think that the flag should mean is, like, an impossible standard in which we are always trying to get to,” she said.
"Like, we’re not there. We were never there."
"First of all, the country was, you know, founded not on freedom and liberty and justice for all.
"I think we can just start to be very honest with ourselves about that.
"It doesn’t mean that we don’t have some of those qualities and that we can work towards some of those qualities.
"But this country was founded on chattel slavery and the brutal and ruthless system of slavery.
"So let’s just, like, all be really honest about that,” Rapinoe added.
"So when I look at the flag, what I want to see is us constantly trying to live up to these words and live up to this ideal where all people are free and all people do have all of their rights – and all people can have a life filled with liberty and justice for all and who, you know, work hard and have a good life and all of these things.
"But, I think, we just so clearly have so far to go. And so I see patriotism as constantly demanding better of ourselves."
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During that interview, she spoke about winning.
"[W]e do win a lot," she said.
"So that is what you become accustomed to.
"But it’s – it goes deeper – we win a lot because we really, truly, deep down believe that we’re going to win.
“We don’t care if we’re down 4-0.
"We will never give up,” the player added.
"[W]e just focus on winning and never giving up.
"I think it’s more of the never giving up part.”
After the loss to Sweden, the U.S. moves on to play New Zealand on Saturday and Australia next week.
This isn't the first time the USWNT has suffered a humiliating defeat, however.
In 2017, the women's national soccer squad was hammered by a team of 15-year-old schoolboys ahead of their big game against Russia.
