It’s one of the unspoken norms of soccer on the world stage: National teams sing their national anthems at major international tournaments.
An open letter to the US Women’s National Team:
Please sing.
Everybody sings.
It’s one of the unspoken norms of soccer on the world stage: National teams sing their national anthems at major international tournaments.
Your opponents all sing.
The Dutch women that you faced off against Wednesday were a sight to behold, arms wrapped around each other’s shoulders, every member audibly belting out the words to “Het Wilhelmus.”
The women’s team from Vietnam, whose national treatment of women’s soccer was largely dismissive until only recently, stood proudly last week with hands uniformly over their hearts and mustered up a rousing rendition of “Tien Quân Ca.”
You used to sing, too.
That team of fearless trailblazers who led the nation to World Cup glory in 1999 — the team that inspired generations of countless female soccer players and to whom this current team owes its very existence — sang proudly with every fiber of their being.
And they had to sing along with the ’90s pop band Hanson.
One of my favorite childhood memories was my mother’s commentary on the national-anthem portion of the gold-medal ceremony for women’s soccer during the 2004 Olympics.
