Bill Simmons torches Alex Morgan after World Cup flop: ‘Not a superstar’

Invoice Simmons believes the USWNT was too beholden to its previous, and never sufficient to the longer term.

After the USWNT was eradicated by Sweden within the spherical of 16 within the 2023 Ladies’s World Cup, Simmons recognized the problems earlier this week on his eponymous podcast.

He started by saying that “you would really feel from the start that one thing was off” with the USWNT, that there have been “purple flags galore,” and that Carli Lloyd was the one individual calling them out because the “one individual within the horror film who is aware of the home is haunted.”

Simmons continued that there was an “conceitedness” to the group carrying themselves as in the event that they have been defending champions, once they have been defending a title that had occurred 4 years in the past.

He bemoaned that the group was “latching onto” Alex Morgan and Megan Rapinoe versus up-and-coming gamers corresponding to Trinity Rodman and Alyssa Thompson.

“I believe one of many variations in males’s sports activities and ladies’s sports activities is that in males’s sports activities we grasp for angles and if any individual is disappointing we actually go nuts,” Simmons mentioned, pointing to how a lot James Harden has been critiqued over time regardless of being a top-35 participant of all-time.

“Alex Morgan, who scored twice in her first two video games within the World Cup in 2011, she scored as soon as in 2015 in seven video games, she scored six occasions in 2019 — 5 in opposition to Thailand in a sport that was 13-0, one within the different six — scored nothing this time round,” Simmons mentioned.

“When you take away that Thailand sport, she’s scored two objectives within the final 17 World Cup video games. That is the striker, the one which’s presupposed to be essentially the most harmful participant on the sphere, who’s supposed to provide objectives. And she or he hasn’t produced objectives because the mid-2010’s on the nationwide degree, and but it’s ‘Alex Morgan, she was presupposed to be the subsequent one, we’ve gotta maintain propping her up and pretending she’s a celebrity.’

“She’s not a celebrity. She’s actually by no means been a celebrity. She definitely hasn’t been as impactful as any individual like Abby Wambach was.”

Simmons commented how the group has been constructed round her getting a lion’s share of the enjoying time, and but they “don’t rating objectives”.

“The announcers simply gained’t speak about it,” Simmons mentioned.

“It’s like being on AYSO group that your child’s on, and the coach is enjoying any individual at striker, and everybody’s like, ‘Why don’t they play Sally at striker as a substitute of the coach’s daughter?’”

“After which you might have Rapinoe, who’s 37 years outdated. Nice profession. Legendary. True legend. Large big-time participant,” Simmons continued, evaluating her to 43-year-old Miami Warmth legend Udonis Haslem.

“Whenever you hit your late 30s in soccer, it’s a wrap. She seemed like Udonis Rapinoe. Not Megan Rapinoe. And comes out for the final 25 minutes of this sport, can’t do something. After which this penalty kick.

“That’s the factor, in the event you’re beholden to previous efficiency, you’ll be able to’t count on to achieve the second.”