Bill Simmons torches USWNT, Alex Morgan after World Cup flop

Bill Simmons believes the USWNT was too beholden to its past, and not enough to the future.

After the USWNT was eliminated by Sweden in the round of 16 in the 2023 Women’s World Cup, Simmons diagnosed the issues earlier this week on his eponymous podcast.

He began by saying that “you could feel from the beginning that something was off” with the USWNT, that there were “red flags galore,” and that Carli Lloyd was the only person calling them out as the “one person in the horror movie who knows the house is haunted.”

Simmons continued that there was an “arrogance” to the team carrying themselves as if they were defending champions, when they were defending a title that had happened four years ago.

He bemoaned that the team was “latching onto” Alex Morgan and Megan Rapinoe as opposed to up-and-coming players such as Trinity Rodman and Alyssa Thompson.

“I think one of the differences in men’s sports and women’s sports is that in men’s sports we grasp for angles and if somebody is disappointing we really go nuts,” Simmons said, pointing to how much James Harden has been critiqued over the years despite being a top-35 player of all-time.

“Alex Morgan, who scored twice in her first two games in the World Cup in 2011, she scored once in 2015 in seven games, she scored six times in 2019 — five against Thailand in a game that was 13-0, one in the other six — scored nothing this time around,” Simmons said.

“If you take away that Thailand game, she’s scored two goals in the last 17 World Cup games. This is the striker, the one that’s supposed to be the most dangerous player on the field, who’s supposed to produce goals. And she hasn’t produced goals since the mid-2010’s on the national level, and yet it’s ‘Alex Morgan, she was supposed to be the next one, we’ve gotta keep propping her up and pretending she’s a superstar.’

“She’s not a superstar. She’s really never been a superstar. She certainly hasn’t been as impactful as somebody like Abby Wambach was.”

Simmons commented how the team has been built around her getting a lion’s share of the playing time, and yet they “don’t score goals”.

“The announcers just won’t talk about it,” Simmons said.

“It’s like being on AYSO team that your kid’s on, and the coach is playing somebody at striker, and everyone’s like, ‘Why don’t they play Sally at striker instead of the coach’s daughter?’”

“And then you have Rapinoe, who’s 37 years old. Great career. Legendary. True legend. Huge big-time player,” Simmons continued, comparing her to 43-year-old Miami Heat legend Udonis Haslem.

“When you hit your late 30s in soccer, it’s a wrap. She looked like Udonis Rapinoe. Not Megan Rapinoe. And comes out for the last 25 minutes of this game, can’t do anything. And then this penalty kick.

“That’s the thing, if you’re beholden to past performance, you can’t expect to succeed in the moment.”