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The Football Federation of Australia’s match report, on the Matilda’s loss to the United States was not particularly sporting, and it has undeniably put Australia and America on the path to war.
There used to be a time when the United States of America and Australia shared a bond so close that not even their butchering of a sacred Australian institution could threaten our friendship.
They would fawn over our accents, we discovered the heart-palpitating joys of Krispy Kreme donuts.
They would look at us knowingly and say, “Put another shrimp on the barr-beeee mate”, we would laugh politely and wonder why they were saying that.
They would tell us there were weapons of mass destruction in a small Gulf nation, we would defy international law and blindly follow them into an illegal, decade-long war.
It was a simpler time, a better time…
But we’ve been pushing our luck with the Yanks for a while now. First, we unleashed the unspeakable terror of Iggy Azalea across the Atlantic, then Matthew Dellavedova injured more or less all of their basketball players and proceeded to turn their league MVP into a frazzled mess of air-balls and turnovers.
But this may be the straw that breaks the camels back. The ANZUS treaty, the free trade agreement, the fast-tracked Game of Thrones episodes are all in jeopardy after this latest diplomatic scandal.
The FIFA Women’s World Cup is taking place in Canada and the second-ranked USWNT beat the Matildas 3-1 in their group match.
A ripping first half from our girls, including a Lisa De Vanna special, gave us all the momentum going into the main break but the US just had too much class on their roster in the end as they ran out 3-1 winners.
Queue a fairly innocuous listicle on the FFA website which has inexplicably blown up on the web.
The article’s first sub-header, “The USA, well they just aren’t that good” didn’t exactly embody the virtue of ‘losing graciously’.
It derided the USA’s “rudimentary, bog-standard 4-4-2″ style of play… that was short of ideas going forward and outmanoeuvred tactically” and claimed “the US were outplayed by a better, smarter footballing side”.
This seems like a slightly biased representation of the game, given the fact the US scored 200 per cent more goals than us – arguably a critical factor in winning football games.
But as The Age has discovered, the response by the Americans to this one-eyed but largely harmless puff piece has been swift and harsh.
SB Nation has come out swinging, and with the best weapons a keyboard warrior has at his disposal – condescending memes. One is a wombat hastily photoshopped into a bald eagle’s talons with all the skill of a year 6 HSIE project.
Professional agitators Deadspin trumped SB, conflating our flourishing wine industry and our convict history to craft a pretty sweet burn:
“It is also the sourest of Shiraz. The US women won, and eventually won handily. This is exactly the sort of avoidance of personal responsibility I would expect from a nation of convicts.”
Well played, Deadspin. Well played.
The FFA article itself has been flooded with comments (359 at the time of writing, which is 359 more than any other FFA article has had) from all over the US – including this gem, with its bold, devil-may-care attitude to grammar and idioms.
“Well that is nice you talk smack or S*** and say how you did not have 2 key players well that is the sports in general so that is a poor excuse to use face it on the day you played the USA they were the better team and they won. So stop crying in your milk and work harder to get better.”
But why does America give but a single hoot about an obscure article about the women’s World Cup? The answer is simple: Americans love winning.
Their deep love of winning trumps their deep ambivalence to anything vaguely European. It’s why they more or less exclusively play sports that only they compete in.
The winning Major League Baseball team wins the ‘World Series’, the Super Bowl champions are ‘World Champions’.
The US always wins. It’s the perfect system.
And the US pretty much always wins women’s football.
They are inexplicably amazing at it, they have the best domestic league in the world, and have literally never been outside the top two in the history of FIFA’s Women’s football rankings (started 2003).
The players are household names and the team has captured the hearts and imagination of the entire country.
This is why we messed up, Australia.
We poked the bear.
There are over 1000 US marines stationed in Darwin ready to strike whenever Obama gives the word.
We’ve got one more month left of this World Cup.
Tread carefully, dudes and dudettes. Tread carefully.
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