Subterms
The Women’s World Cup opens Thursday in Australia and New Zealand, and continues until the final in Sydney on Aug. 20. The host nations will get things started, with New Zealand facing Norway and Australia meeting Ireland. The time difference between — and within — Australia, New Zealand and other parts of the globe may […] More
The World Cup is missing some of the sport’s biggest stars because of a knee injury epidemic. No one can say for sure why it’s happening, or how to fix it.The third time around, Megan Rapinoe’s reaction to a potentially career-ending knee injury went no further than an eye roll. She had torn her anterior cruciate ligament. She could reel off the recovery schedule from the top of her head. She could see, crystal clear, the next nine to 12 months spooling out in front of her.The surgery, the painstaking rehab, the grueling weeks in the gym, the anxious first steps on the turf, the slow journey back to what she had once been. As she considered it in 2015, she felt something closer to exasperation than to despair. “I was like, ‘I don’t have time for this,’” she said.The first time had been different. She had torn the anterior cruciate ligament in her left knee at age 21, when she was a breakout star in her sophomore year at the University of Portland. At that time, she felt what she called “the fear” — the worry that it might all be over before it had begun.A year later, she had done it again: same ligament, same knee, same arduous road back. It did not stop her from doing all that she had dreamed of doing. She turned pro. She was named to an all-star team. She represented her country. She won a gold medal at the Olympics. She moved to France. She played in two World Cups. She won one of them.And then, during a training session in Hawaii in December 2015, months after her 30th birthday, it happened again. This time, it was the right knee, and this time, her reaction was different. “It changed for me as I got older,” she said. “That one was like an eye roll. ‘This is annoying. I know what it is going to take to come back’. But generally, I think there’s this fear. Is this going to be the end? Am I going to come back from this? Am I going to have pain forever?”Over the last year or so, that fear — and the searching questions it prompts — has coursed through women’s soccer. The sport has at times seemed to be in the grip of an epidemic of A.C.L. injuries, one so widespread that at one point it had sidelined a quarter of the nominees for last year’s Ballon d’Or.Alexia Putellas, the Spain midfielder who won that award and the consensus pick as the best player of her generation, has recovered in time to grace the World Cup, the sport’s showpiece event. But countless other stars have not. They will, instead, spend their summer at home, nursing their injuries, cursing their luck.Alexia Putellas of Spain missed last year’s European Championship after tearing a knee ligament. She hopes to play a key role in her country’s World Cup campaign.Damien Meyer/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe list is a long one. Catarina Macario, the U.S. forward, tore the A.C.L. in her left knee last year and could not regain her fitness in time. She will not be present in Australia and New Zealand. Nor will two of the stars of the England team that is hoping to dethrone the United States: The team’s captain, Leah Williamson, and its most productive goal-scorer, Beth Mead, both fell victim to A.C.L. injuries this season.The Olympic champion, Canada, has lost Janine Beckie. France has not been able to call upon Marie-Antoinette Katoto or Delphine Cascarino. The Netherlands, a finalist in 2019, is without striker Vivianne Miedema.But these are just the famous names, the familiar faces, the notable absentees. The problem has become so acute that, at times, it has strained tensions between national teams and the clubs that employ the players from which their rosters are drawn, with at least one high profile European coach suggesting that too much was being asked of the athletes.Miedema herself pointed out that, this season alone, almost 60 players in Europe’s five major leagues had torn their A.C.L.s. “It is ridiculous,” she said earlier this year. “Something needs to be done.”Working out precisely what that might be, though, is more complicated than anyone would like.Lack of KnowledgeThere is fear, of course, for players who are enduring those long weeks of recovery, but it is not the only type of fear. In Europe particularly, over the last 12 months, the sheer scale of the issue — the numbers of players being struck down by torn A.C.L.s — set off a psychological contagion.A number of national associations, as well as local offices of FIFPro, the global players’ union, reported inquiries from active players — those who had seen teammates or opponents or friends condemned to months on the sideline — seeking reassurance, solace or even just basic information.“The players are asking for research,” said Alex Culvin, FIFPro’s head of strategy and research in women’s soccer. “We’ve had a lot of feedback from players saying they feel unsafe. You saw it last season — at times, players were not going in for tackles as they normally would because they were worried about injury.”The problem, Culvin said, is there is not enough research available for anyone to give the players clear answers. European soccer’s governing body, UEFA, has been running an injury surveillance study on men’s soccer, for example, for more than two decades. The women’s equivalent has been operating for only five years. “That lack of knowledge creates fear,” Culvin said.It is established fact that women are more at risk of suffering an A.C.L. injury than men. Quite how much more at risk is a little murkier. Martin Hagglund, a professor of physiotherapy at the University of Linkoping in Sweden, puts the risk at “two to three times greater, based on a systematic review of studies.” Culvin goes a little higher: Some studies, she said, suggest the risk for women could be “six or seven” times as great as that for men. “There is a real range,” she said.The France striker Marie-Antoinette Katoto, on crutches, was left off France’s World Cup roster after she was unable to complete her recovery in time.Franck Fife/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe issue of why that might be is more contested still. Traditionally, much of the research has focused on biology. “There are obvious anatomical differences” between men’s and women’s knees, Hagglund said. Not just the knees, in fact — the whole leg. Some studies have suggested that women’s A.C.L.s are smaller. There are differences in the hips, the pelvis, the engineering of the foot.Increasingly, too, there is a body of evidence to suggest there is a link between hormonal fluctuations and susceptibility to injuries in general, and A.C.L. injuries in particular. Chelsea, one of the leading clubs in England’s Women’s Super League, now tailors players’ training loads at specific phases of the menstrual cycle in a bid to mitigate the impact.As a paper published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine in September 2021 pointed out, though, the instinct to focus purely on physiological explanations is both rooted in and serves to reinforce the misogynistic stereotype that “women’s sport participation is dangerous predominantly due to female biology.”It also runs the risk, in Hagglund’s mind, of turning a blind eye to the host of other issues that may have played a part in depriving the World Cup of so many of its brightest lights this month. “The focus on anatomical differences means we have left out the other parts, the extrinsic factors,” he said. It just so happens that those are the ones that might, feasibly, be addressed.Injury as a Measure of ValueIt is perhaps natural that for the players themselves, the cause of the run of A.C.L. tears is obvious. “We keep adding games left, right and center,” said Miedema, one of four players at Arsenal alone who have sustained the injury this season. “Instead of 30 games a season, we now play 60. But we don’t have the time and investment that is needed to keep players fit.”Kristie Mewis, a U.S. midfielder, contended that the “intensity” with which women’s soccer is now played had compounded that effect. It is not just that there are more games, she said. It is that they are exponentially faster, more physical and more demanding than ever before. “As the game is growing, it’s getting more competitive,” she said. “Maybe stress has something to do with it.”Rapinoe would endorse both ideas — “the load and intensity are different,” she said — and would add that while women’s soccer has professionalized on the field at breakneck speed, it has not always matched that pace off it.Megan Rapinoe has endured three A.C.L. tears, injuries that left her unable to play in the 2007 World Cup and the 2008 Olympics.Rob Kinnan/USA Today Sports, via Reuters“We don’t generally charter; we don’t fly private,” she said. “We don’t have the resources. So with recovery, you’re being asked to produce a bigger load than you ever have but with less resources than you really need to do that.”To Hagglund, that is only the start of a long list of possible structural, cultural factors that might be at play. “Women’s soccer does not have the same organizational support as men’s,” he said. That applies not just to travel, but to the number and the quality of medical staff members, physiotherapists, nutritionists.Likewise, young female players, until relatively recently, did not have the benefits of the same sort of specialized strength and conditioning training that is commonplace in boys’ academies. Women’s teams have what he called smaller “competitive” squads — they rely heavily on a handful of high-profile players, ones who cannot afford to be rested. “That means they are more exposed to fixture congestion, there is less rotation, they are more likely to play with an injury,” he said.And then there are the environmental problems. Women’s teams do not play on the same perfectly manicured lawns that top men’s teams do. “In Scandinavia, certainly, it is still quite common for teams to play on artificial turf,” he said. The players must do so, often, while wearing shoes designed with men’s feet, rather than women’s, in mind.As diffuse as all of those problems are, they come down to much the same thing in Culvin’s mind. “It is a question of value,” she said. “What value do we place on an athlete? The players might be professional, but the conditions around them are not always suitable for professional athletes. There is not equity in the workplace until we value them properly in all components — the fields, the stadiums, the support staff around them.”The Right FitLaura Youngson is always surprised, even now, by the number of players she encounters who have convinced themselves that soccer cleats are designed to be uncomfortable. “That’s the perception,” she said. “That they’re supposed to feel like that, and that women, in particular, are just supposed to put up with it. They’re really not meant to be like that.”Still, the belief is widespread. Earlier this year, an in-depth study conducted by the European Club Association and St. Mary’s University, London, found that 82 percent of elite female players experienced “pain or discomfort” from the footwear they wore while playing.The reason for that is simple. In contrast to running, say, where major footwear brands realized long ago that women and men required — and would buy — different types of shoes, the soccer versions sold to women are, largely, not actually designed for them. The abiding market principle has effectively been, as Youngson put it, “that women are just small men.”Laura Youngson started a company that produces custom-made soccer cleats for women, using research that found they tended to have narrower heels, wider toe boxes and higher arches than men.Hannah Peters/FIFA, via Getty ImagesFor a long time, like everyone else, Youngson just accepted that her soccer shoes never seemed to fit quite right. Then, after organizing a charity game on Mount Kilimanjaro in 2017, she realized that she was not alone. Even the professional players on the trip had the same complaint. She saw an opportunity — both a business one and a moral one — to put it right.Since then, the company she founded, Ida Sports, has conducted extensive research to produce the first custom-made women’s soccer cleats. They found that women tended to have narrower heels, wider toe areas and higher arches. (They are also more likely to change than men’s are, particularly during and after pregnancy.) That means they “interact differently with the ground,” something that Ida Sports has tried to remedy by redesigning the sole of the shoes she makes.There is also enough evidence to suggest that the shape and structure of women’s feet may make them more susceptible to injuries, both chronic and acute, including A.C.L. tears. Youngson does not claim to have a silver bullet for the knee injury epidemic, nor does she believe that wearing better-fitting shoes will end the problem on its own.“But there is definitely an opportunity for further research,” she said. “People are doing great work studying hormones and behavior and other things. We know boots and surfaces. There are definitely recommendations that we would make. The issue is, how do we keep more players on the pitch? Even if it is for a 1 percent gain, it is worth it.”Like Rapinoe, the former England international Claire Rafferty endured three A.C.L. injuries in her career. As with Rapinoe, her reaction changed over time. After her first, in her left knee, she felt “invincible,” as if she had gotten her bad luck out of the way early. She was only 16. It would, she assumed, be smooth sailing from there.She did not know then that the single greatest risk factor for sustaining an A.C.L. injury is having experienced one. Research suggests that 40 percent of players who have torn a cruciate ligament will do so again — in either knee — within five years. It is closer, in other words, to the flip of a coin than a roll of the dice.Rafferty learned that the hard way. In 2011, she tore the A.C.L. in her right knee. That time, she recalls being “in shock.” She did what she could to mitigate the risk. Despite her entreaties, her coach at Chelsea, Emma Hayes, regularly refused to allow her to play on artificial surfaces. Two years later, Rafferty tore the A.C.L. in her right knee again.“Nobody thought you could come back from three A.C.L.s then,” she said. Rafferty did. Physically, at least. Mentally, the scars did not heal. “I wasn’t calm,” she said. “I thought every game could be my last. I was playing with a lot of fear. I had quite a lot of anxiety. I couldn’t play like I did before.The former England player Claire Rafferty retired from soccer after three A.C.L. injuries left her unable to play without the fear that another was only a step away.Ker Robertson/Getty Images“I remember hearing people ask, ‘What’s happened to Claire Rafferty?’ I wanted to tell them that I couldn’t run properly because I was so afraid. I didn’t enjoy playing football. I started to resent it.”That fear, the one felt by the players missing this year’s World Cup, the one shared by all those who now feel unsafe on the field, had overwhelmed and inhibited her. She knew what she had to do. Long before her career should have ended, she walked away. She was 30. For women’s soccer, the real risk of its A.C.L. epidemic, the one rooted in lack of knowledge and a historical lack of care, is that she will not be the last.Jeré Longman More
The Women’s World Cup, which opens this week, is the biggest in its 32-year history, but it may also be the most open field the tournament has seen.While plenty of the 32 teams descending on Australia and New Zealand probably have modest ambitions for the next month, it is not a stretch to say that almost half of the field might regard themselves as serious title contenders. (Some more accurately than others.) These 10 countries are the most likely to stick around all the way until the end.United StatesForward Trinity Rodman is one of 14 U.S. players headed to their first World Cup.Phelan M. Ebenhack/Associated PressTwo things can be true at once. By common consensus, Vlatko Andonovski’s team arrived in New Zealand as the favorite to win the tournament. It has the aura of experience, the dazzling jolt of youth and the deep bedrock of talent to lift a third straight World Cup. It has a psychological edge, too: It has been the game’s superpower for so long that respect can manifest as awe.At the same time, the undisputed primacy the United States has enjoyed for more than a decade has never been more fragile. There is a risk that this squad will fail the Goldilocks test: Some players are too old, some are too young, and so perhaps none are just right. Europe’s major nations have closed the gap. In the space of a month last year, the Americans lost to England, Spain and Germany. The United States has the squad to emerge as champion. But for the first time in some time, it is not alone in that.EnglandRachel Daly started at left back in the Euros last summer. Now she is England’s most potent striker.David Rogers/Getty ImagesExpectation hangs heavy on Sarina Wiegman’s England. The Lionesses won the European Championship on home soil last summer, the team’s first major honor, and followed that with a victory in the Finalissima — a game between the European and South American champions — earlier this year. Winning the World Cup would be the natural conclusion to a trajectory that has been on a steep upward curve for 10 years.Fate, though, has intervened. Wiegman has lost her captain, Leah Williamson; her most creative player, Fran Kirby; and her most potent attacking threat, Beth Mead, to injury. Millie Bright made the squad but is still, strictly speaking, recovering from knee surgery. Wiegman is an astute enough coach — and she has enough talent at her disposal — to disguise those losses. But she will be doing so on the fly.AustraliaSam Kerr will shoulder the hopes of one of the host nations.William West/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesIt is difficult not to see the co-host less as “Australia” and more as “Sam Kerr and Guests.” At 30, Kerr, the Chelsea striker, may well be the finest player in the world. She is a totem for her country. She is the face of the tournament, the person expected to deliver what she has referred to as a “Cathy Freeman moment.” She is the star on which Australia’s hopes hang.That assessment is not quite true. Tony Gustavsson’s squad is drawn largely from the major leagues of Europe and the N.W.S.L. In Caitlin Foord, Hayley Raso and Alanna Kennedy, the supporting cast is a strong one. Its momentum, too, is considerable: Australia has won eight of its last nine games, including a milestone victory against England. Kerr will have to deliver, of course, but she is far from alone.The NetherlandsThe Netherlands lost to the United States in the World Cup final in 2019. Its path runs through the Americans again.Rob Engelaar/EPA, via ShutterstockIn 2019, the Dutch emerged as the standard-bearer for Europe’s coming force, an advertisement for the game’s shifting power base. They fell agonizingly short, losing to the United States in the final. Progress since then has been patchy, as they have lost Wiegman, who left to coach England, before falling in the quarterfinals of the European Championship last summer.The core of the team that made the final four years ago — Danielle van de Donk, Jackie Groenen, Jill Roord, Lieke Martens — remains, and the Dutch have the talent to make a deep run once more. Two things stand in their way: the absence of striker Vivianne Miedema through injury and an unfortunate draw for the group stage. The Dutch face the Americans early; defeat in that game will most likely mean a tougher route for the remainder of their stay.CanadaChristine Sinclair has played 323 games for Canada.LM Otero/Associated PressThe Canadians have made precious little impact on the latter rounds of the World Cup in the last two decades, extending their stay beyond the first knockout round only once. Yet even that, on home soil in 2015, lasted only until the quarterfinals.In many ways, it is hard to see that changing this time around. Christine Sinclair is 40; Janine Beckie is out, another victim of women’s soccer’s A.C.L. epidemic; Canada has won only one of its last five games and has been drawn in the same group as Australia. But there is a resilience to this team that should not be underappreciated: It is only two years, after all, since Canada — completely overlooked then as now — won gold at the Tokyo Olympics.BrazilMarta is headed to her sixth World Cup with Brazil.Ueslei Marcelino/ReutersOn some level, Brazil’s stay in this World Cup will be seen as Marta’s valedictory tour: a sixth and (presumably) final tournament turned into a lap of honor for a 37-year-old player regarded by some as the best of all time.It is hard, certainly, to believe that it will end with Marta’s repeating Lionel Messi’s trick and finally winning the honor that would mean more to her than any other. Brazil’s squad is not as strong as previous editions, and none of them were strong enough to overcome the superpowers of North America and Europe, either. Still, in Pia Sundhage, Brazil has a canny, adroit coach, and the likes of Debinha, Kerolin and Geyse mean Marta may not have to bear the load alone.SpainAlexia Putellas of Spain is the reigning world player of the year.Steve Luciano/Associated PressMore than anyone — even England — Spain should be the biggest threat to the United States’ crown this summer. Its national team is, after all, based largely on the Barcelona team that has become the dominant force in European club soccer. Alexia Putellas, while most likely not fully recovered from the knee injury that kept her out of the Euros last year, is the reigning world player of the year. Spain has lost just once in a year.The problem is that Spain has been engulfed by civil war between the players and the country’s soccer federation since last summer. Though an uneasy truce has been called — allowing some of the 15 players who had demanded the dismissal of the coach, Jorge Vilda, to return — the effects are still being felt. A dozen players are still missing, and Vilda must find a way to instill a team spirit in a squad consisting of both rebels and their replacements.FranceWendie Renard, center, and Kadidiatou Diani had threatened not to play for France under its former coach.William West/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe Spanish might have had the least ideal preparation for a major tournament, but kudos to the French for giving them a run for their money. Corinne Diacre, the longstanding coach who had lost the faith of a considerable number of her players, was finally ousted in March. She was replaced by Hervé Renard, a globe-trotting coach of some renown but absolutely no experience in the women’s game.He has, at least, restored some familiar faces to the squad: Wendie Renard and Kadidiatou Diani, both of whom had refused to play under Diacre, are back. Amandine Henry, the vastly experienced midfielder, had been recalled, too, only to suffer a calf injury that will keep her out of the tournament. France’s hopes, now, rest on the new coach’s being able to get the best out of a team he has only just encountered.GermanyLena Oberdorf and Germany will enter the World Cup off a run of puzzling results.Christof Stache/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesIf anything at all is certain about this tournament, it is that the Germans will reach the quarterfinals. In eight attempts, they have never failed to do so, and given a kindly group draw — Morocco, Colombia and South Korea — there is little reason to believe they will not make the last eight again.Whether Coach Martina Voss-Tecklenburg can steer her team any further, though, is open to question. Germany has a well-balanced squad — two outstanding goalkeepers, the emerging star power of Lena Oberdorf, the creativity of Lina Magull, the goals of Svenja Huth and Alexandra Popp — and finished as runner-up in last summer’s European Championship. But its form is sputtering: It has lost to Brazil and Zambia in the last couple of months and just squeezed past Vietnam in a warm-up match last month.SwedenKosovare Asllani and Sweden finished third at the 2019 World Cup and second at the Tokyo Olympics.Kimmo Brandt/EPA, via ShutterstockNobody ever thinks about Sweden. Sweden might have one silver and three bronze medals to show for its eight previous World Cups, and it might be a reliable force in the European Championship, but the operating assumption is always that Sweden is not a genuine contender.It is worth pointing out, then, that Sweden not only has the likes of Fridolina Rolfo, Stina Blackstenius and Hanna Bennison to call on, but that it made the semifinals of the Euros last year, and it swatted aside the United States on the way to the Olympic final two years ago. Sweden is a threat. But nobody ever thinks about Sweden. More
A concerted effort to say Indigenous names correctly, and tell the stories behind them, will show up in stadiums in New Zealand and Australia.When soccer fans land in New Zealand this month ahead of the Women’s World Cup, they may find themselves welcomed not to Auckland or Wellington, but to “Tāmaki Makaurau” (“Tah-mah-key Ma-kow-row”) or “Te Whanganui-a-Tara” (“Tay Fung-a-noo-ee a Tah-rah”).Those names — what the cities are called in the country’s Indigenous language, te reo Māori — are reflected in the official documents for this year’s Women’s World Cup, which has placed Indigenous languages and imagery unapologetically at the forefront.Every city that will host a match is listed with its English and Indigenous names, and FIFA announced this month that it would fly First Nations and Māori flags in every stadium. The effort came after soccer and government officials in the host nations pushed for a more inclusive approach, and it “will mean so much to so many,” the head of Australia’s soccer federation said.In New Zealand, the decision reflects an ongoing conversation about the nation’s identity. For decades, many New Zealanders routinely mangled and mispronounced the Māori names of the country’s cities and towns. Taupō (“Toe-paw”) was pronounced “Towel-po.” Ōtāhuhu (Oh-tah-hu-hu) was “Oter-hu.” And Paraparaumu (“para-para-oo-moo”) was sometimes simply referred to as “Pram.”More recently lawmakers, broadcasters and much of the general public have cast out those mispronunciations as part of a concerted national effort to say the names correctly. At the same time, many are choosing to use their cities’ original Māori names over their English alternatives. Last year, a formal petition to rename the country altogether and restore all Māori names was signed by more than 70,000 people.“Before, it felt like a choice to say the names right,” said Julia de Bres, a linguist at Massey University in New Zealand. “And now it feels like a choice not to.”Visitors should absolutely use those names, as well as the common greeting “kia ora” (“key ow-rah”), said Hemi Dale, the director of Māori medium education at the University of Auckland.“Once you grasp the vowels, you can get your tongue around most of the words — long sounds, short sounds, the macron,” the horizontal line above a vowel that indicates a stressed syllable, he said.The Māori flag outside Te Papa museum of New Zealand.Marty Melville/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images(A note: New Zealanders overseas — of any descent — will often permit themselves an internal wince at how foreigners say the word “Māori.” The correct pronunciation is closest to “Mao-ree,” and never “May-or-i.” The plural is simply “Māori,” without an “s,” which does not appear in the language.)The championing of Māori place names is visible throughout New Zealand life: Increasingly, New Zealanders call their homeland Aotearoa, the Māori name that is often translated as “land of the long white cloud” and that has been used by Māori to refer to the country for decades, if not centuries. Māori and English names are used by the country’s weather forecasting service, on newly released official maps and on signs on the nation’s roads.The changes are an effect of a decades-long movement to revitalize a language that risked being extinguished by colonialism, said Rawinia Higgins, the country’s Māori language commissioner.As English-speaking settlers became the dominant population, Māori and their language were sidelined and suppressed. As late as the 1980s, Māori children were beaten at school for speaking the language, and many adults chose not to pass it on to their families.Starting in the 1970s, the Māori language revival movement has led to te reo’s being adopted as one of the country’s two official languages, alongside sign language, and the establishment of nearly 500 early childhood schools in which Māori is spoken exclusively.Many non-Māori New Zealanders have embraced the change, and there are long wait lists for Māori language courses. The government aims to have one million New Zealanders — roughly one-fifth of the population — speaking basic Māori by 2040.But for a small but vocal minority, a bicultural society is viewed as divisive rather than inclusive.Last year, after the chocolatier Whittakers temporarily changed the packaging on its milk chocolate bars to read Miraka Kirīmi (Creamy Milk), some in New Zealand called for a boycott of the brand. The question of bilingual road signs has taken on outsize importance ahead of this year’s general election, where questions of racial politics have become a feature of the center-right’s rhetoric.Place names, as some of the more visible examples of the shift, have become caught in the fray. Lost in that debate is the reality that the country’s colonial names often had little to do with the places they related to.Christchurch, for instance, was named to recall a college at the University of Oxford, while the name Auckland was bestowed as a thank you to George Eden, the Earl of Auckland. Eden was the boss of a former governor of New Zealand, William Hobson, who chose the name. Eden never set foot in the city.By contrast, Māori place names reflect location-specific information, including important stories or where food might be found, said Hana Skerett-White, a Māori teacher, advocate and translator who has worked with artists such as the singer Lorde.“The Māori names tell us stories,” she said. “They speak of our history, of important events, and they actually act as pockets of knowledge, which is how we transmit information from generation to generation.“When those names are taken away, so too are our knowledge systems disrupted in the process.”A view of Tāmaki Makaurau, or Auckland in English.Catherine Ivill/Getty ImagesEnglish translations for Tāmaki Makaurau, as Auckland is known in Māori, vary. One version indicates that the city, with its palm-fringed harbors and volcanoes, is a place desired by many. Another tells the story of Tāmaki, a beautiful princess, and her many admirers.From a Māori perspective, each understanding is equally valid, and individual tribes, or iwi, may approach it differently, said Pāora Puru, a Māori language advocate and a co-founder of the Māori social enterprise Te Manu Taupua.“People have their own interpretations, their own meaning,” he said. “I liken it to an invisible umbilical cord that connects you to that place, and to your ancestors’ traditional connection, association, occupation or use of that particular area.” More
Even before Julie Ertz gave birth to her son, Madden, last August, she knew it would be a challenge to return to the fitness and form that would be required of her if she wanted to play in a third Women’s World Cup.Pregnancy and childbirth, unlike sports injuries, offer no reliable timeline for return, no proven handbook to guide a player back from what is a life-changing event. More important, Ertz, who was 30 when Madden was born, wanted to gauge her progress discreetly before she made any promises to the national team. To pull that off without attracting attention, Ertz was going to need help.A group of teenage boys answered the call.Ertz was in Phoenix, which is her hometown and where her husband, Zach, plays tight end for the Arizona Cardinals. She reached out to two of the coaches who knew her best: Paul Taylor and Matt Midkiff, who had helped guide her development from preteen prodigy to college all-American. Taylor and Midkiff connected Ertz with Phoenix Rising, a United Soccer League club with a Major League Soccer Academy program. Ertz arranged to begin training with the club’s under-19 team in February.When Taylor informed the boys on the team that Julie Ertz would be coming to practice, many of the players greeted the news with blank stares.But not Luke Burns.Luke Burns, right, was pleasantly surprised when he found out Julie Ertz would be training with his team. He was a fan.Courtesy Luke Burns“At first, I was star-struck,” said Burns, 17. “I don’t think many of my teammates really knew who she was. But I was one of the only ones who was like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is crazy.’”Burns, who has committed to play at the University of Virginia, said his older sister, who also plays college soccer, got him into watching women’s soccer at a young age. He knew the players. He knew their histories and their highlights. Still, he said, it took him 15 minutes to work up the courage to introduce himself to Ertz at her first training session. It took even less time to sense that she was a cut above.“Even on the first day of training that we had with her, she was in the best shape out of all of us,” Burns said. “She would do extra sprints after practice. She would do these little things to become a bit better. And it showed me that if I wanted to go to the professional level, I have to do those extra things as well.”Taylor said Ertz set a high standard for herself in their first conversation. If she was going to come back, she told him, she did not want to simply come back as the player she was before. She wanted to be better than anyone remembered, better than even she could remember.“I know the expectation and standards that this team has,” Ertz said. “And I didn’t want to go into any camp if I wasn’t feeling like I could actually compete.”An Ertz fan at the U.S. team’s send-off game in California.Marlena Sloss for The New York TimesFor Ertz, that motivation came from an intimate knowledge of the national team and the role she would need to play to contribute at this World Cup. At the time she returned to training, the national team’s captain and defensive linchpin, Becky Sauerbrunn, was struggling with a foot injury. (Sauerbrunn was eventually left off the World Cup roster.) Sam Mewis, a midfielder who had played a pivotal role in the team’s 2019 World Cup championship, was enduring repeated setbacks with her injured knee. (Mewis may never play elite soccer again.)Without them, Ertz knew, the U.S. team was in need of experience and leadership at the back. It needed her to be the glue that held the spine of the team together.But by February, the clock was ticking. When U.S. Coach Vlatko Andonovski released a training camp roster for the SheBelieves Cup, Ertz’s absence was not a surprise. Still, Andonovski warned, “time is running out for her.”As the pressure mounted, Ertz remained committed to taking things slow. She knew she needed to reach peak performance quickly, but she also knew she couldn’t rush it.By March, national team staff members had seen Ertz play with Phoenix Rising in scrimmages and had come away impressed. Talk of her returning for the World Cup began to circulate inside the team. Defender Kelley O’Hara, who has played with Ertz for 10 years, said she tried to manage her excitement when it began to sound possible that Ertz would make it back in time.“I started texting her,” O’Hara said, excitedly miming a typing motion with her fingers. “Not trying to put too much pressure, and not trying to, you know, sway her decision. But she’s awesome and she’s an incredible teammate to have, especially in tournaments like this.”Ertz returned to club soccer in April with Angel City of the National Women’s Soccer League.Troy Wayrynen/USA Today Sports, via ReutersIn late March, Andonovski called Ertz into her first training camp since the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. In April, Ertz returned to club soccer by signing with Angel City of the National Women’s Soccer League. Slowly increasing her workload and fitness, Ertz showed Andonovski enough that he named her to his 23-player roster for the World Cup. Days later, in her final game before she left the club to join the national team for training, she played 97 minutes. Her comeback was complete.“It’s been competitive, which is what you need,” Ertz said of her two months with Angel City. “It’s been an environment to be able to thrive.”Now a bigger task awaits. She and her U.S. teammates will open the World Cup on Friday night (Eastern time) in Auckland, New Zealand. Madden Ertz and his father will be in the stands cheering. Julie Ertz will probably be right in the middle of the field. Right where she wanted to be. Right where her team needs her. More
Injuries weakened the Lionesses, and recent results have raised eyebrows. But the players and their coach say it takes a lot to shake a champion.Sarina Wiegman likes to look on the bright side of things. In April, England’s 30-match unbeaten run was ended with a 2-0 loss to Australia. But Wiegman, the team’s Dutch coach, deliberately focused on the positives.“It sounds really strange, and you always want to win, but I think this defeat also brought us so many learning lessons,” she explained a few weeks later during an interview at England’s training facility in St. George’s Park. “It has, most of all, showed us the urgency to do some things better.”It is an interesting time for the England women’s team, which arrives at the Women’s World Cup as one of the tournament favorites but also in perhaps its most uncertain state after two years of largely smooth sailing under Wiegman.The Lionesses are the champions of Europe, a triumph claimed on home soil last year that has precipitated a sea change for women’s soccer in England. Never-seen-before viewing figures. Record attendances and a vibrant domestic league. Victories in the past year over the reigning World Cup champion (the United States) as well as World Cup contenders like Germany, Sweden and Spain. And ever-rising expectations that this is just the start.England’s celebrations after their Euros win.Tolga Akmen/EPA, via Shutterstock“With this England team,” Wiegman said, “everyone expects us to win.”But the England that enters this World Cup is, arguably, a weakened champion. In the months since claiming its European title, what began as the loss of one key starter to injury, striker Beth Mead, has become three. Midfielder Fran Kirby will miss the World Cup, too, after having surgery on her knee. Leah Williamson, who captained England as it conquered, has, like Mead, torn a knee ligament. Her replacement captain, defender Millie Bright, has only recently recovered from a knee injury of her own, and was a question mark when the team boarded its flight to Australia.Recent results have proved similarly worrisome: The loss to Australia was followed by a lackluster 0-0 draw against Portugal, a game in which a frustrated England unable to convert any of its 23 attempts on goal. A goalless draw in a behind-closed-doors friendly against Canada, England’s last game before the World Cup, was the team’s third straight scoreless performance.Yet Wiegman remains pragmatic and steadfast. Again and again in her recent interview, she returned to the same questions that have become touchstones for her and her team: “What do we want to do? How do we want to play? What are the roles and the tasks in the team?”She has insisted on a game-by-game approach, and communicated to her players that tactics and, perhaps more important, minutes will be decided on a day-to-day basis. That fluidity, Wiegman said, has its own motivating value, offering “opportunities for other players to play, to take responsibility, and to show who they are.”“That’s why we then come back to: ‘OK, this is our next game’,” she said. “And then we’re in the now.”England Coach Sarina Wiegman led the Netherlands to the 2019 final. Now she hopes to do the same with England.Justin Tallis/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesPlayers, of course, have their own ambitions.“We’ve all got dreams, and we all want to win,” forward Lauren Hemp said. “We’ll see how the tournament goes. But it’s something that we’re striving toward obviously, coming off the back of the championships and winning the Euros. It makes you hungry to want to win more.”The 22-year-old Manchester City defender Esme Morgan is among the new faces vying for game time. “That’s really been emphasized, to be honest, that there’s no set places in the squad,” she said after going 90 minutes in the draw against Portugal. “There’s so much competition in every position across the pitch. Really in training you can see that: The standard is so, so high.”Lucy Bronze, one of the team’s most senior players, saw her own history as a guide. “I went into 2015 as a young player not expecting to play much and I ended up playing in every single game, scoring goals, and I forced myself into the spotlight and broke out a little bit,” she said. “Anything can happen in a World Cup.”Wiegman harbors her own hopes for the squad. “We have high expectations, too,” she said. But true to her instructions, she is staying in the now. She is not interested in discussing a potential rematch against Australia in the round of 16, or a possible collision with the United States, or Germany, or anyone else if England can navigate deep into the knockout stages.“Let’s first see, ‘OK, we want to get out of the group stage,’” she said. “Then you come to the next stage and we see who is in front of us. It’s going to be very tough. And if we would get to the final, hopefully we do.“It really doesn’t matter who’s in front of us. You just want to win every game.” More
The women’s soccer star, who announced on Saturday that she would retire later this year, always seemed to deliver in the biggest games.Megan Rapinoe, who announced on Saturday that she planned to retire from professional soccer later this year, rose to stardom in part because of her outspoken political views and her leadership in her sport beyond the field. But much of that was possible because her career on the field had so many highlight-reel-worthy moments.She is expected to soon reach 200 appearances for the U.S. women’s national team. She has 63 goals in her international career and is one of only seven American women with more than 50 goals and 50 assists in international competition.She was the second pick of the 2009 draft of the defunct Women’s Professional Soccer league, and played the majority of her club career with the Seattle Reign of the National Women’s Soccer League. She won a French title with Lyon, a Ballon d’Or as world player of the year and Olympic medals in two colors.But it has always been the moments and the creativity of her offense, not the volume of goals or assists, that truly set Rapinoe apart. Here’s a look at some of her best touches.Abby Wambach and Rapinoe celebrating after Wambach scored a goal in the 2011 Women’s World Cup quarterfinal match in Dresden, Germany.Martin Rose/Getty Images2011 World CupThe U.S. women’s national team finished third in the 2003 and 2007 World Cups, failing to capitalize on the momentum of its win in 1999. In 2011, it was facing a humbling early exit when it trailed Brazil, 2-1 in overtime, during a quarterfinal match.The game was already in stoppage time when Rapinoe got the ball from Carli Lloyd near midfield. She took one dribble, looked up and sent a long ball toward the far post, where Abby Wambach was waiting.Wambach rose behind Brazil’s goalkeeper and headed the ball into the net, delivering what is considered one of the greatest goals in the history of the women’s game. The Americans went on to win in a penalty-kick shootout, though they later lost an epic final to Japan.2012 OlympicsThe United States faced Canada in the women’s soccer semifinal of the 2012 London Olympics. Down by 1-0 in the second half, Rapinoe made Olympic history by scoring what is known as an “Olimpico” — a goal that finds the net directly off a corner kick. She was the first woman to do it in the Games. Then she repeated the feat during the 2021 Tokyo Olympics.2015 World CupIn the first game of the 2015 World Cup, a matchup with Australia, Rapinoe scored twice to lead her team to a 3-1 victory. In the 12th minute, after battling for a contested ball, Rapinoe made a full 360-degree spin at the top of the box before collecting herself with a couple touches and firing a shot from 20 yards. The ball ricocheted off a Canadian defender and found the back of the net.2019 World CupThe United States entered the 2019 World Cup in France looking to become the first women’s team to repeat as World Cup champion under the same coach. Rapinoe put together a career run — winning both the Golden Boot, for most goals (six) and the Golden Ball as the tournament’s outstanding player. But it was her goal against France in front of 45,000 onlookers that sent her on her way.The U.S. Women’s soccer team celebrating after winning the World Cup final match against the Netherlands in 2019.Alessandra Tarantino/Associated PressA master at set pieces, Rapinoe stepped up to take a free kick in the early minutes of what many expected to be a tense and pivotal match. She sent a streaking ball through the box that wound its way through the legs of multiple teammates and defenders and into the back of the net. Rapinoe celebrated by running to the sideline and spreading her arms wide, a gesture that became her signature celebration, and the lasting memory of a tournament where she was regularly in the right place at the right moment.Tokyo Olympics, 2021Looking to build off two consecutive World Cup victories, the U.S. women’s national team headed to Tokyo in 2021 to play in Olympic Games that had been delayed a year because of the coronavirus pandemic. In the quarterfinals, the United States and the Netherlands squared off in a World Cup finals rematch. The game went to penalties after a 2-2 draw, where it was Rapinoe’s dagger to the upper right corner that sent the United States to the semifinal. More
One day after announcing her plan to retire this year, Megan Rapinoe began her farewell tour as an unused substitute in her team’s send-off match.Megan Rapinoe began her long goodbye with the equivalent of a homecoming.In the decade and a half since she became a professional soccer player, Rapinoe’s career has taken her to soccer clubs on two continents, to Olympic Games on three and, soon, to a fourth World Cup. On Sunday, a day after she surprised her team and her fans by publicly announcing plans to retire at the end of this year, Rapinoe found herself settling into a seat on the U.S. women’s national team bench a couple hundred miles from her hometown.Rapinoe, 38, grew up in Redding, Calif., about 250 miles north of the site of Sunday’s game, PayPal Park in San Jose. She estimated that about 40 of her family members and friends had made the trip south to see the United States beat Wales, 2-0, in its final game on American soil ahead of the Women’s World Cup that starts later this month in Australia and New Zealand.“This is the closest that I’ll ever get to play to Redding in my career,” Rapinoe had said on Saturday. “It does feel very special. It feels perfect.”During the news conference in which she announced her retirement plans on Saturday, Rapinoe had said that she was at peace with the decision to step away from soccer. Now, she was just enjoying the chance to give a proper goodbye to the sport that made her an international star, as well as a spokeswoman for equal rights, equal pay and social justice issues close to her heart.Rapinoe has played for the national team since 2006. A three-time Olympian and two-time World Cup champion, she has scored 63 goals for the United States and is one of seven players to have accumulated more than 50 goals and 50 assists in her U.S. national team career.Her role is different these days, having evolved from a lineup fixture to a late-game substitute. She is still valued by her coach, Vlatko Andonovski, though; he included her on his World Cup roster because he values her leadership, experience and ability to shape big moments.Whenever and however she plays going forward, she remains a crowd favorite. One fan, Corina Burns, who wore a No. 15 T-shirt with the name “Rapinoe” on the back, said she drove from Southern California with her three daughters to attend Sunday’s game. It wasn’t the family’s first trip to see the national team play: They were in France four years ago when Rapinoe was one of the Americans’ most valuable players in their victory at the 2019 World Cup.“We saw her play and fell in love with her,” Burns said.That World Cup remains, for now, Rapinoe’s crowning achievement. She won both the Golden Boot as the tournament’s top scorer and the Golden Ball as its outstanding player. It is also when she cemented her status as a pop culture icon: She scored six goals in the competition even as she publicly battled with President Donald J. Trump.She remains an outspoken voice, but she is a different player these days. Rapinoe has been hampered by injuries for months, with an ankle injury keeping her out of the start of the National Women’s Soccer League season and a calf injury keeping her out of two national team matches against Ireland in April.In her absence, newer faces — Sophia Smith, Trinity Rodman, Alyssa Thompson — have begun to lay claim to the forward position where Rapinoe was once a clear choice. That new generation, the one that will occupy the space vacated by Rapinoe, was on display again against Wales.In the 76th minute on Sunday, Rodman, 21, broke through in a scoreless game by scoring easily off a cross from Smith, 22. Rodman struck again in the 88th minute, powering a shot from 20 yards past the hands of Wales goalkeeper Olivia Clark. Rodman became the youngest American player to score two goals in an international match.Rapinoe still has much to offer, too. Andonovski has made no secret of how much he values the wisdom and institutional knowledge she brings to a team that now features players like the 18-year-old Thompson, who is fresh out of high school; Savannah DeMelo, 25, who received her first cap on Sunday; and the dozen other new faces headed to their first World Cup.That they struggled, until Rodman scored twice off the bench, to break down a resolute Wales team that failed to qualify for the World Cup was perhaps a hopeful sign that Rapinoe might still have an important role to play before she walks away from the team for good.Her chance never arrived on Sunday: Rapinoe did not warm up and Andonovski never called for her to come on. It was another sign that although Rapinoe said her time is almost up, the times may have already changed. More
