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Deadspin trolls Canada, claims U.S. women's soccer team is "vastly superior"
American sports website Deadspin is well-known for both scoops and controversies, and they may have created one of the latter with a Women's World Cup preview piece published Wednesday. They've been running Billy Haisley's previews of the various Women's World Cup teams this week, but while all of those previews are from a U.S.-centric perspective, most of them at least do a decent job of analyzing the team in question and their chances. Compare that to Wednesday's preview of Canada, which seems designed to provoke Canadian outrage, featuring the headline "Will Canada Earn The Right To Get Knocked Out By The USWNT Again?" and some remarkably insulting commentary:
Unfortunately for the Reds, revenge is still a dish best served American.
The Canadian women’s national team is the most Canadian of Canada’s sporting institutions. Like Canada itself, the team is pretty damn good, with a couple of bona fide attractions that could rival the best of any other country in the world. Also like Canada, pretty much everything the team has ever done has been overshadowed by their vastly superior neighbors to the south.
Historically, the Reds haven’t been very good at all at soccer on the international stage. ...
The reality of their talent level combined with the pressure to overachieve could just as likely weigh the team down over the course of the tournament as it could lift them up, at least in matches they will be perceived to be favorites in. They find themselves in a tough but winnable group, and should make their way to the knockout rounds barring a collapse. Despite their relative talent shortcomings compared to the best of the best, as host nations have shown before (and this very team has in recent years), a pumped-up home team isn’t anything any of the favorites will relish enduring. Let’s hope we get that Canada-America rematch everyone wants. Because it will be fun to break those Canuck hearts again.
It's one thing to discuss the Canadian team analytically, but saying "Also like Canada, pretty much everything the team has ever done has been overshadowed by their vastly superior neighbors to the south" is on another level, and one that may offend plenty of Canadians. It's indisputably true that the U.S. has found more success in women's soccer than Canada has, but keep in mind that they have 10 times the population, substantially more infrastructure and developmental programs, and have prioritized women's soccer for longer. The Americans haven't been all that good lately, either; yes, they're always highly ranked, and they've won two Women's World Cups, but those came in 1991 and 1999. They've finished third, third and second in the most recent Women's World Cups and won gold in the last three Olympics (the last one only after beating Canada in a semifinal game featuring controversial refereeing; it's notable that Haisley inserted highlights of the wrong game at first) , so they're certainly going to be a strong contender in this tournament, but "vastly superior" seems like a stretch, even if they spell neighbors the wrong way.
Some of Haisley's piece isn't that far off. Canada's women's team's international results haven't always been the best, and the team certainly has relied on the likes of Christine Sinclair and Sophie Schmidt too much at times. However, the Canadian team looks to be trending up following bronze in the 2012 Olympics, and they're coming into this tournament in solid form. Meanwhile, the American team's results recently haven't been that great. Yes, the U.S. would be favoured if the two sides meet again, but writing Canada off this way seems like a mistake. Revenge may not be a dish best served American at all.
This is far from the first U.S. piece in recent months that many Canadian soccer fans would object to, as a lot of the recent coverage has only amped up that rivalry. That's not just from the media, either, as from the turf lawsuit that eventually went nowhere to Sydney Leroux's claims of racist chants to Megan Rapinoe's rather-patronizing comments, the American players have done a lot to add fuel to this fire. Some U.S. media outlets appears happy to help, too, from Grantland's laudatory profile of Leroux (which also found plenty of ways to bash Canada) to this Deadspin piece and more. In the end, all the talk is just talk, but it should make a potential meeting between the Americans and Canadians even more exciting. If that happens, we'll see who's really vastly superior.
