U.S. women’s national soccer team (USWNT) co-captain Lindsey Horan finally made time in her busy schedule to apologize to American soccer fans after she called them “dumb.”
In an interview with The Athletic earlier this month, Horan discussed the challenges facing the USWNT after the departures of many veteran leaders. As a captain of the team, she shared a lot of insight on what the team’s goals are (no pun intended).
Then out of nowhere, she decided to criticize the soccer IQ of many American fans. You know, the ones that weren’t already wildly put off by how much this team loved to spread woke ideologies instead of playing soccer.
“American soccer fans, most of them aren’t smart,” Horan said in the interview. “They don’t know the game. They don’t understand. (But) it’s getting better and better. I’m gonna piss off some people, but the game is growing in the U.S. People are more and more knowledgeable, but so much of the time people take what the commentators say, right?”
If you want a perfect example of how to alienate your audience, examine that quote.
For the first time in over a decade, the USWNT had the chance to reshape its image after the insufferable Megan Rapinoe retired (it’s okay, you can clap for that). In one of her first interviews after accepting this new team leadership role, she decides to call the fans who have loyally supported her and her team “dumb?”
That’s a pretty rough start.
The first thing you’d want to do is make an apology for those comments. And she did…two weeks later.
"First and foremost, I would like to apologize to our fans," Horan said during a press conference. "Some of my comments were poorly expressed and there was a massive lesson learned for me.”
I’m not sure why this needed to happen for you to learn that calling your fan base “dumb” isn’t a smart thing to do, or why it took you so long to realize this. But hey, at least you eventually got there.
"When I think about our fans, I love them so much, this team loves them so much, and I can't begin to explain how much they mean to us," she continued. "Every time we step out and train, every time we step out and play in games, we play for you [fans], and you are an inspiration. You are a motivation, and seeing you wearing our jerseys and seeing you screaming our names and chanting U-S-A, that's what we play for."
Despite the incredibly slow time it took to apologize, we do have to give her props for taking ownership of her comments. If she’s more thoughtful and intentional with her words in the future (especially in simple matters like this), she won’t have to spend time at press conferences making apologies.
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