USMNT pokes jokes at Abby Wambach

In a time when the teams should be supporting each other, a few of the USMNT members are poking jokes at Abby Wambach over her DUI arrest via social media

After being arrested on Saturday night and charged with a DUI in Oregon, USWNT star Abby Wambach apologized via social media stating that she has always held herself to a standard of excellence and that she made a poor decision. Following her apology there were quite a few members of the men’s team who decided to basically mock the retired gold-medal Olympian.

Wambach became the butt of a few jokes from a few of the USMNT members after Alejandro Bedoya decided to take to twitter to joke about the arrest. Even after his initial tweet criticizing Wambach was followed with fan scrutiny, Bedoya hasn’t lightened up on his twitter rant against Abby Wambach:

And if you can dish out criticism, like make xenophobic comments, than I'm sure you can take criticism also when you mess up.
— Alejandro Bedoya (@AleBedoya17) April 3, 2016

In his tweet, Badoya is referring to an interview that Wambach gave pretty soon after her retirement in which she stated that the main problem with the USMNT is the fact that Jurgen Klinsmann brings in foreign players to compete. “It’s just not something that I believe in,” Wambach told Bill Simmons in an interview. Jozy Altidore replied to Badoya’s criticism of Wambach with a tweet of his own in which he refers to Jeremy Stevens’, husband to USWNT’s goalkeeper Hope solo, arrest for DUI while driving a team van in January of 2015:

Wambach’s choice to get behind the wheel after drinking sheds negative light on the USWNT as they fight for equal pay from the USSF. The USWNT claims that they are underpaid and underappreciated. At the same time, the USMNT is trying to overcome scrutiny after not being able to qualify for the Olympics for the second straight time leaving only the women to represent the United States at the 2016 Summer Olympic games in Rio.

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While I haven’t been the biggest Abby Wambach fan since she chose to sit out of NWSL during her run at the 2015 Women’s World Cup while the rest of the team continued to play for their club, I think that the USMNT needs to focus a little more on qualifying for major competitions and winning championship titles before throwing flack at a fellow member of U.S. Soccer. I’m by no means trying to give Wambach an excuse- what she did was awful.

There’s no reason anyone should ever get behind the wheel of a car after they have been drinking any amount of alcohol, much less after they’ve been drinking enough to fail a sobriety test. Not only did Wambach’s choices put her life at risk, but it put the personal safety of anyone else on the Portland streets Saturday night at risk as well. Beyond that, such an influential member of any organization should never shed that sort of bad light on themselves or the organization.

While Wambach’s comments about foreign players were out-of-place, a horrible representation of her character, and just flat-out a dumb thing to say the comments should have never been made and there’s no excuse for them. Bedoya has all the right in the world to be infuriated by the comments made about foreign-born USMNT players, however poking jokes at drunk driving is not the time nor place for jokes to be made.

Bedoya later made a poor attempt at covering up his badly timed aggression by saying he was truly just advocating against drinking and driving all along. As for Altidore, there’s really no excuse for his public shaming of Wambach.

What it comes down to is the simple fact that both the men and the women involved with U.S. Soccer need each other if they want to make any sort of positive strides when it comes to showing their relevance in the soccer world and receiving the respect and pay that their hard work and dedication so rightfully deserves. Bickering back and forth through social media and fighting like a couple of kids in the backseat of the USSF’s SUV is counterproductive, out-of-place, and essentially accomplished nothing for either team.

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