Recently-retired and recovering from her season-ending injury, US Women’s National Team (USWNT) soccer player Megan Rapinoe is sharing criticisms for her time spent on the team. Speaking of her experiences on the Netflix documentary series, “Under Pressure: The U.S. Women’s World Cup Team,” Rapinoe spoke about the pressure she faced as an elite athlete. “I always say it’s the worst job in the world because if you do your job, then you were supposed to, and if you do one hair less, then you are gonna get lambasted for it,” she said. She added that despite the US women’s team being knocked out early during the FIFA World Cup last season, she still sees her last World Cup as special. “I think it’s just such a different feeling knowing that this is going to be my last World Cup, being kind of an old head and having a different role on the team. It means a lot to me in a lot of different ways than the other ones did. Yeah, this one’s very special.”

Rapinoe’s professional club career spanned from 2009 to 2023 and during that time, she was no stranger to criticism. In 2016, she sparked controversy after kneeling during the US National Anthem. She said the decision was in support of Colin Kaepernick, who began kneeling prior to football games to protest what he claimed was America’s unfair treatment of black Americans. In an interview, she said Kaepernick’s accusation of inequality in America resonated with her. “Being a gay American, I know what it means to look at the flag and not have it protect all of your liberties,” she said. She also began decrying pay inequality between women’s and men’s soccer. In 2018, the winning men’s World Cup team was paid $38 million while the winning women’s team in 2019 was paid $4 million. Prize money for those games was $400 million for men versus $30 million for women. Rapinoe’s critics, however, noted the discrepancy in popularity as the reason for the gap, not the sexism that Rapinoe claimed. “But this isn’t evidence of deeply-ingrained sexism. It’s a reflection of the relative commercial status of men’s and women’s soccer, and each one’s ability to draw a consistent audience. This is the core factor driving merit-based compensation in the entertainment industry. When judged on their merits, the Women’s World Cup teams don’t deserve to be paid as much as their male counterparts,” wrote Brad Polumbo for The Washington Examiner in 2019.

Rapinoe’s retirement hasn’t kept her from receiving criticism either. After an injury ended the final game of her career early, Rapinoe stated it was a sign that God did not exist, which earned her the ire of critics. “Narcissism at its finest,” wrote former ESPN host Sage Steele. Her latest comments on working for the USWNT didn’t help her much either. Sports outlet Outkick’s Mark Harris called Rapinoe’s statements signs of a “loser mentality.” “Rapinoe has portrayed herself as some sort of fighter, and won the fight for equal pay, yet doesn’t want to be criticized when the team doesn’t meet expectations. The lack of self-awareness with Rapinoe is off the charts,” wrote Harris. “That’s a loser mentality to a tee, and we’re talking about a woman who has won Olympic gold medals and multiple World Cups. She accomplished those things with the stars and stripes on her chest, however, which left a sour taste in her mouth turning her into one of the most bitter people in sports.”