The Megan Rapinoe penalty kick that went terribly awry hadn’t yet landed in row twelve Sunday, sending the USWNT home way earlier than expected from World Cup 2023, when Twitter and other mediums fired up the disgust, disdain, and downright hate.

America loves a winner that also loves America.  America empathizes with a loser that also loves America.  America hates a loser that also hates America.

Ms. Rapinoe(we aren’t sure that she would approve of the MS) became the lightning rod in the middle of the storm that this team created.  They managed to skip/kneel/ and act disinterested during the National Anthem one too many times for one too many American.

Their gripes were plentiful and aimed at a country that gave them opportunities a plentiful.  Social injustices were just the start.  Equal pay became the cry.  And, mint dyed hair herself said that her greatest accomplishment over the last eight years with this team was “equal pay.”  Interesting answer.

People’s want for equal pay in America is tempered by doing an equal job in the capitalist arena.  When far fewer folks watch the tv pays far less to teams because advertisers and sponsors get charged less.  Usually.

Don’t believe it?  Ask any WNBA player.

And, the last straw was her overtly expressed desire for trans women to be allowed to play soccer, and for that matter all sports, with the biological kind.  American sentiment runs strongly the other way.

The kick and the team’s shortfall have now been labeled “the woke choke.”

Megan Rapinoe is on a very short list of the most controversial sports personalities of the 21st century.  She’s got a lot to say on a lot of topics.  America prefers to keep sports as an escape from the daily discourse that is far too rampant.

Some, predictably and as is their right, dribbled in her defense.

Pablo Torre, Spanish soccer player for La Liga club Girona tweeted, “Nothing says AMERICA FIRST more than rooting against *checks notes* the literal U.S national team because they *checks notes* peacefully exercised freedom of speech.”

Someone needs to tell Pablo that freedom of speech in the USA works both ways. If you don’t like red, white, and blue, red, white, and blue might not like you either.  If he would have received a Presidential Medal of Freedom as Rapinoe did, he would know that.

The penalty for missing a penalty kick is that you get sent home.  The penalty for missing a penalty kick when you have repeatedly trash-talked your home is far greater.

Rapinoe’s world stage just collapsed and not a moment too soon.

That is unless Joe Biden invites them to the White House to celebrate their 16th-place finish.