Sweden has been a fierce rival of the United States in international women’s football, but that didn’t stop one of its players from jumping to the Americans’ defence when a US journalist bashed them.
Swedish midfielder Kosovare Asllani was still basking in the afterglow of the Swedes ousting the two-time defending champions from the Women’s World Cup when she said the reporter shaded the US squad.
“I had an interview with an American journalist yesterday and he was talking so much in a question,” Asllani said on The Re―Cap Show podcast this week.
“I was like, ‘How can you ask me this?’ He asked basically, ‘Oh, the US are talking about the American team is so over, you know, la, la, la.’ And I was like, ‘Don’t talk shit about the American team.’ That’s basically what I said. I was like, ‘You can’t say this.’”
While conservatives led by Donald Trump turned the team’s demise into anti-woke blather, Asllani wasn’t having it. The team’s off-field campaign to boost pay for female players and advocate for LGBTQ rights will long outlive its disappointing showing at the World Cup, she said.
“The US Women’s National Team, they’re pioneers,” Asllani said on the show, hosted by two-time World Cup winners Tobin Heath and Christen Press. “I mean, you are raising the game. You are opening doors for the rest of the community, the rest of the world. You are first with everything.”
Asllani also had positive words for the US right after the Swedes’ shootout victory.
“They will come back for sure, they have so much quality on their team,” Asllani said. “This defeat will not take them down.”
