This article originally appeared on the Shea Butter FC website
During the Manchester Derby, Lucy Bronze started at right back. It has been a while since Bronze has started consistently, particularly coming off the back of her FIFA Best Player Award from 2020. Now, a large part of this may be that Bronze is English and I was watching an English (England) broadcast of the match, so the expectation is always, people will hype up their own. They should, by the way. We have no shame in our mission here at SBFC and we think we are correct in doing so. But that is not the point of this.
Pace and Power. The most dreaded phrase of all for any Black soccer player. I read once that those two things cannot co-exist together, as they are two different and opposite measurements in science. I wish I would remember where I saw this for due credit. I will keep digging, or you all can let me know where it lives, and I will do so. Anyway, back to this phrase. It is a term slapped on just about every Black player with any talent and notoriety, whether they are fast or not. Whether they are strong or not.
Crystal Dunn has spoken about this. Yes, she is fast, but she is not abnormally fast compared to, say, Rose Lavelle. Nor is she fast compared to lighter teammates Mal Pugh or Christen Press. Sometimes, like Press, or Lynn Williams, the attribute of pace is given without the power, or Midge Purce is noted for her power and 1-v-1 skills, but not overly for her pace. In all of this, all of these Black women are robbed of the one thing they all possess…intelligence. All of them have a phenomenally high soccer IQ. I know this because I see them play the game, in-person and on my TV screen. I also know this because they would not have gotten anywhere in the U.S. Soccer program without it, because Black players cannot simply be “muscle” and be successful in WOSO.
Lynn Williams uses her ungodly speed to get to the open spot, to which she will almost always beat her defender. But Lynn Williams also has to read the game to know that that is the open spot. If she wasn’t intelligent, her speed would be useless. Dunn, Press, Pugh, and Purce are all noted passers of the ball. I would argue they are often a play or two ahead of most on the pitch. The intelligence to read the game, to know where your runner will end up before they end up there is the type of intelligence we laud white quarterbacks in American football for.
I jokingly call Crystal Dunn my quarterback, but it isn’t really a joke at this point. She is as smart as Tom Brady and Aaron Rogers, yet she still is not given the chance to play the #10 for her national team because she’s also one of the most versatile athletes in American sport. Yes, I said sports, period. If you gave her a month or two, she’d probably be a decent goalkeeper. If shooting were a skill that was valued, Christen Press would be an all-time great player. People of note often treat shooting as a secondary skill. We yell “shoot it” often, without really thinking much about the process of a shot.
Much like Steph Curry in the NBA, I think Press has done a lot to show the value and intelligence it takes to be an elite shooter. I could argue she’s the most accurate shooter we’ve ever had in this country. And while that involves an obsessive amount of practice, for which Press is known for having taken 100 shots a day, every day, it also requires, you guessed it, intelligence. But that intelligence often lies in communities of color, the Liga MX Feminil’s, the CONMEBOL club teams, the AFCON club teams, all of whom get an abysmal amount of both media coverage and support (links are at the end of the article). Shooting isn’t valued because those who value it don’t look the part.
So you’re probably wondering why I started an article that is mostly about Black players in WOSO with Lucy Bronze. During that derby, the commentators repeatedly attributed pace and power to Bronze. And again, in so far as that term makes sense, they are not incorrect. She is faster than many English players, and she is a strong player, hard to knock off the ball, particularly when making runs forward from her outside back position. She is noted for her attacking ability from that position, some of which she learned stateside at UNC Chapel Hill, the same school Crystal played for and won a Hermann Trophy for.
Pace and Power. The most dreaded phrase of all for any Black soccer player.
Of note, Crystal Dunn was an attacker/midfielder in college and is often in midfield for club, particularly during her time with the Courage and now in Portland. But unlike the term pace and power when it is attributed to Black players, I noticed that the attribution did not run in contradiction to the announcer’s belief that Bronze was also an intelligent player.
In fact, she’s often noted for her ability to read the pitch and pick out passes and make great crosses into her strikers. In those moments, I also couldn’t help but think that Dunn does all of those things as an outside back, but it is her worst position.
She is one of the best in the world in her worst position, yet intelligence never comes up. That somehow the ability to play at a world class level on all three lines takes no intelligence when you are Black. The ability to defend the best strikers in the world even when you are not fast somehow does not take intelligence when you are Black. Reading the game to beat your opponent to the spot does not require intelligence when you are Black. Being arguably the most accurate shooter in the game does not require intelligence when you are Black.
Asisat Oshoala having Miedema like stats this season, Marie-Antoinette Katoto having better than Miedema or Kerr stats this season, Shaw being a prolific goal scorer and always being the right place at the right time, doesn’t require intelligence, even though it does when it’s Ellen White or Alex Morgan.
Speed and quickness matter in the game of soccer. Intelligence is necessary to be one of the best in the world in the game of soccer. The Black players in WOSO have many of those attributes at the same time. But much like the world treats Black women/femmes/non-binary people in all other walks of life, soccer media does not see the whole person, the whole player.
Black players are a means to an end, the ability to see all they can be stops and starts at their skin, their family’s skin, their culture. They are those type of players because they are Black. They are not separate from their Blackness. It is part of what makes them elite. And during this, Black History Month in America, it is time for you all to either acknowledge this or get out of the way and let these players tell their own stories. Believe Black women or leave us alone and let us be great.
In Blackness,
CONMEBOL coverage on Twitter:
@rflalves
@futfemcolombia
@femeninoAFA
@belaisalmeida
CONCACAF coverage on Twitter:
@ffemenino507
@AztecaAmeliaaa
@FutMexNation
AFCON coverage on Twitter:
@samueloahmadu
@JWsports1
@DiskiQueenz
@WosoManiacs
Photos featured in this article are from Dante’y Buitureida.
Follow Dante’y on Instagram at danteysart and visit her linktree.
