Majority of USWNT remains silent as national anthem plays prior to Women’s World Cup opener against Vietnam

The United States girls’s nationwide workforce’s relationship with the nationwide anthem has develop into difficult over time. Up to now, some members of the workforce have taken a knee because the track performed previous to the kickoff of a match.

However, when the USWNT lined up on the sphere previous to the beginning of their opening 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup match towards Vietnam, nearly all of the workforce stood through the enjoying of “Star Spangled Banner,” though a lot of the gamers appeared to stay silent.

The whole opposing workforce appeared to passionately sing as Vietnam’s nationwide anthem “Tiến Quân Ca,” or “Music of a Marching Military” was performed. The gamers appeared to sing in unison, and all eleven athletes held their proper fingers over their hearts.

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Six of the 11 American soccer gamers who stood on the sphere at Eden Park in New Zealand stood with the fingers to their aspect or behind their again because the anthem performed.

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The remaining 5 gamers positioned their fingers over their hearts because the track blared all through the stadium.

Julie Ertz, Alyssa Naeher and Lindsey Horan had been seen mouthing the phrases to the track whereas the remainder of the workforce appeared stood stoically.

A pair of essential victories in 2022 punched Vietnam’s first-ever ticket to the FIFA Girls’s World Cup. The newcomers’ historic look on the sport’s greatest stage marked a brand new chapter in girls’s soccer in Vietnam.

Since its inception in 1997, the Vietnamese girls’s nationwide workforce has confronted an uphill battle within the battle to realize entry to the identical quantity of sources because the male workforce historically acquired. Up to now, some members of the workforce would reportedly tackle different jobs because of the low pay they acquired for taking part in on the nationwide workforce.

The Vietnamese girls actually entered their first World Cup match with an incredible sense of satisfaction, given what they’d achieved by qualifying for the World Cup, and their ardour was on full show as their nationwide anthem performed.

Savannah DeMelo, #9, Julie Ertz, #8, and Naomi Girma, #4, of the USA line up through the FIFA Girls’s World Cup Australia & New Zealand 2023 Group E match between the USA and Vietnam at Eden Park on July 22, 2023, in Auckland, New Zealand. (Carmen Mandato/USSF/Getty Photos)

Nonetheless, as soon as the match started, the USNWT workforce’s elite expertise was additionally on full show. The reigning two-time FIFA Girls’s World Cup champions defeated Vietnam 3-0 within the workforce’s historic sport. Group USA is as soon as once more the favourite to win this 12 months’s title.

U.S. soccer star Megan Rapinoe turned one of many first distinguished feminine athletes to take a knee through the nationwide anthem in solidarity with former NFL participant Colin Kaepernick’s silent protest towards police brutality and social injustice in 2016.

Kaepernick started the peaceable protest on Aug. 14, 2016, earlier than the beginning of a preseason sport. His gesture didn’t garner a lot consideration till the third time he did it previous to the beginning of one other preseason sport on August 26.

Megan Rapinoe, #15, kneels through the Nationwide Anthem previous to the match between the USA and the Netherlands at Georgia Dome on September 18, 2016, in Atlanta, Georgia. (Kevin C. Cox/Getty Photos)

Rapinoe is enjoying in her last World Cup. Earlier this month, Rapinoe mentioned she’s going to retire from professional soccer on the finish of the 2023 Nationwide Girls’s Soccer League season.

She has additionally been outspoken on a protracted listing of social points all through her profession together with, LGBTQ+ rights, racial inequality, voter rights and gender and pay fairness.

Within the weeks main up 2019 FIFA Girls’s World Cup Rapinoe acknowledged that she would “by no means put my hand over my coronary heart” through the enjoying of the nationwide anthem.

“I’ll most likely by no means sing the nationwide anthem once more,” she mentioned on the time.

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Throughout a 2021 match towards Australia, just one member of the American girls’s soccer workforce opted towards kneeling because the “Star Spangled Banner” performed.