Carli Lloyd knows what it feels like to lead U.S. Soccer to the promised land. She won two World Cups with the U.S. Women’s National Team during her international career, and won two Olympic gold medals to boot.
The success of the women’s national team has always run in stark contrast to the struggles of the men’s side to break through on the global stage. The history of both teams has created two completely different standards for many observers: a championship expectation for the women, and an expectation that the men simply need to outperform arbitrary benchmarks set by pundits.
Lloyd believes that expectation gap should be closing. As more American men play in top European leagues, she believes it’s fair to demand more from the USMNT in international competitions like the World Cup. Speaking with Awful Announcing during a press event ahead of this summer’s World Cup, Lloyd explained why her studio analysis of the men during Fox’s coverage next month will be equally critical to her analysis of the women during the 2023 World Cup, when her discerning analysis of the USWNT proved prescient ahead of an early exit.
“You’ve got this team full of players that, a lot of them are playing overseas at big clubs,” Lloyd said, “and maybe some of them aren’t getting a lot of minutes or producing, but they’re still competing and playing. So I think the expectation, in my eyes — and, you know, maybe these players aren’t as good as we all think they are — but who’s to say that a semifinal is unachievable?”
Even Lloyd admits that a semifinal run for the USMNT might require some divine intervention from the “soccer gods,” but she believes it’s fair to have those aspirations for the team, and it’s why she plans to treat her analysis of the men just like she did the women three years ago.
“Why do we want to keep rinsing and repeating the same thing?” Lloyd said. “You know, ‘Let’s get out of the group. Let’s get to the round of 32 … and, you know, kind of bow out at the round of 16.’ At some point, we got to push further.”
Lloyd caught a lot of flak in 2023 after criticizing the USWNT for celebrating a 0-0 draw with Portugal that was barely good enough for the team to advance into the knockout stage.
The USWNT would be eliminated the following match, a round-of-16 game against Sweden, ending a lackluster campaign that included just one win in four contests, a 3-0 victory over Vietnam.
“The women weren’t playing well and it was obvious to everybody,” Lloyd recalled. “I’d have to live under a rock if I didn’t call them out for some of the things that were going on.”
Lloyd would be vindicated, even if she would’ve preferred not to be. But that’s part of the gig as a television analyst. You’re not paid to be a cheerleader, you’re paid to give clear-eyed insights about what’s happening on the pitch. So don’t expect Carli Lloyd to let the USMNT off the hook because expectations surrounding the team aren’t as high as the women. She understands that American soccer fans want more than a round-of-16 appearance. They want something bigger, more memorable, and, in her estimation, the USMNT should be prepared to deliver that during a World Cup on home soil.
About Drew Lerner
Drew Lerner is a staff writer for Awful Announcing and an aspiring cable subscriber. He previously covered sports media for Sports Media Watch. Future beat writer for the Oasis reunion tour.