reached a $24 million settlement<\/a> with U.S. Soccer. The federation paid $22 million in back pay to the players and put the remaining $2 million toward a fund for players\u2019 post-playing careers.<\/p>\nOne day later, the USWNT capped off its victorious 2022 SheBelieves Cup campaign in Frisco, Texas, by wearing \u201cProtect Trans Kids\u201d wristbands along with their uniforms. Striker Cat Macario pointed to the wristband after scoring one of the five goals the USWNT put past Iceland in that match; the gesture was part of the team\u2019s protest against Texas Gov. Greg Abbott\u2019s directive that licensed professionals from the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services report trans children and their parents to local authorities, and to investigate gender-affirming care as child abuse.<\/p>\n
Five players from that 2022 SheBelieves Cup roster \u2014 Emily Sonnett, Trinity Rodman, Rose Lavelle, Emily Fox and Lindsey Heaps \u2014 are on this year\u2019s roster.<\/p>\n
Coffey said that part of the USWNT\u2019s appeal has always been \u201cits ability to be such a beacon of light in times of darkness, and also doing what is good, right and just and using your platform as a tool and to be an advocate for the voiceless in whatever kind of context that might be.\u201d<\/p>\n
She was also candid about where she views the current U.S. squad in that regard.<\/p>\n
\u201cI do think we\u2019re still figuring out what that looks like for this iteration of the team,\u201d she said. \u201cI think we do need to be better in the ways that we\u2019re being vocal and standing up and speaking out about a myriad of topics.\u201d<\/p>\n
Coffey, however, maintained, \u201cI think we can rest assured that we are doing that work, and that we are going to figure it out and figure out what it looks like for us and what feels authentic to this team, because no team is the same.\u201d<\/p>\n
Those generational shifts, she said, \u201care part of the beauty of the U.S. women\u2019s national team, too, (that) we always are evolving and kind of going through phases, and so it\u2019s an honor to be a member of this team, especially in this regard.\u201d<\/p>\n
Coffey transferred to Manchester City from the Portland Thorns in the Women\u2019s Super League in January and has been a fixture on USWNT head coach Emma Hayes\u2019 roster despite a year of dynamic experimentation and new faces. Her comments Thursday were an extension of statements made to the BBC in an interview published last week, in which she described the aforementioned players as \u201cthe epitome of using your platform for good,\u201d citing their fight for equal pay.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe all have a voice, and they set such a standard for what this team means to people,\u201d Coffey told the BBC. \u201cIt is so much more than a soccer team. We have always been this pillar of what it means to stand up and speak up for social justice issues, whatever that might be, most recently equal pay.\u201d<\/p>\n
The U.S. faces Argentina on Sunday, followed by matches against Canada in Columbus, Ohio, on March 4, and Colombia in Harrison, N.J., on March 7 in the round-robin tournament.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"U.S. women\u2019s national team midfielder Sam Coffey said she and her teammates have a responsibility to speak out…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":493401,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[46185,29031,403,99,34538,25450],"class_list":{"0":"post-493400","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-soccer","8":"tag-nwsl","9":"tag-portland-thorns","10":"tag-soccer","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-us-womens-national-team","13":"tag-womens-soccer"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=493400"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493400\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/493401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=493400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=493400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=493400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}