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Trying to channel the confidence of South Africa’s Thembi Kgatlana. I’m Emily Olsen, here with Meg Linehan and Steph Yang — welcome to Full Time!
Federation Conflicts
Sam Mewis: World Cup comes with a catch-22
While our journalists bring you closer to the action on the ground in Australia and New Zealand, we also have five guest writers, including U.S. women’s national team midfielder Sam Mewis, who will offer unique insight and analysis throughout the tournament. The World Cup winner isn’t with the U.S. in New Zealand due to injury, but she’s still very much carrying on the fight back home. Her words on the battle for equality in women’s soccer are more poignant than I could ever write, so Sam, take it from here:
Being in conflict with your federation — your employer — during the biggest moments of competition is an odd feeling.
At least nine teams headed into this tournament with some form of recent dispute or statement asking for further support for their team. (I’ll leave the full rundown of all of these issues to the reporters here.) These players — and the rest of the field of 32 — are now playing in the World Cup, the ultimate platform….
