I don’t much care for sports. I watch exactly the following, should the mood and opportunity take me:

– World Cup matches from quarter-finals on.

– Wimbledon from quarter-finals on.

– If Finns are winning at some inexplicably random winter sports. 

Despite not always choosing to waste my life on watching the tediously lengthy matches (fending pigeons off my balcony is a full-time job), I do soak up the atmosphere and revel in joy, because big international sporting events are fabulous. This summer’s World Cup was fucking mesmerising, because it was about much more than football. There were some issues that left me puzzled, though, and they were the following: 

Politics should be kept off pitch. 

This is tricky. Should we declare all other forms of entertainment (music, movies, TV, theatre) as politics-free zones as well? Exactly what are the restricted areas where human rights and equal pay are allowed to be discussed, then? Exactly which people are allowed to bring forth injustices in public? 

Whining about pay inequality damages women’s football.

Yes I get it, it’s a spectator sport. One wants to be entertained, not hectored. Especially not by women. Again, who in the hell should be demanding a pay increase if not those who want it? Should female professional athletes the world over shut up and wait for the universe to sort out everything that’s more urgent first, and just before declaring the world ready, maybe tend to issues such as equal pay?

Fun fact: female professional footballer’s dollar is 18 cents. So, stop whining. Disperse – there’s nothing to see here. 

We have double standards for the celebrating USWNT.

I am raised in a culture where inebriation itself is nothing short of actually being celebrated. All our national heroes, sports or other, have demonstrated public drunkenness if not frequently, at least once. I am not shocked by people in public in a drunken stupor. I do appreciate this matter to be different in other parts of the world, and it would appear that it is thus in the United States. Had male athletes celebrated the same way, they would have been scolded and told off, they say. 

I will be holding my breath for upcoming USWNT-related revelations and court-cases concerning solicitation of prostitutes and sexual assaults during their World Cup win celebration, something that rather frequently pops up when male athletes “celebrate”.

Drunk on champagne in public? “Wah wah wah”, as Megan Rapinoe would say.

​They are just too full of themselves. 

I mean how necessary of Rapinoe to pose with the trophy and a bottle of Veuve Clicquot (the cheek of that woman!) and say aloud (No shame, that one!): “I deserve this. I deserve all of this” ??

Who says that? Which male athlete has ever shown such arrogance anywhere, ever?

(Free tip: follow Mr Thigh Cleavage @cristiano on Instagram. It’s the guy who was asked by the Spanish newspaper Marca which football player he’s most impressed by and replied “Myself, in a mirror“.)

Wish these women would just accept the flowers and wave and not say fuck so much. 

Also the entire team defies statistics.

Everybody let’s be very honest here. How can they all be so good looking? How is that even possible? 

Is there anything they cannot do?

It would appear there isn’t. They are better at playing football, speaking in public and looking hot than anyone of us. 

They are also such an inspiration to so many people right now, be it the sport or the values they represent, or both. I obviously envy them for their muscular thighs, but otherwise am full of altruistic pride and joy and happiness for them, and willing to ditch my cynicism for a moment and believe that they are the change agents who will make a difference, because the platform they have worked for is getting pretty epic. 

Next: Serena Williams at Wimbledon final on Saturday. 

Photo credit to The New Yorker/The Cut.