Shannon Boxx celebrates her World Cup win with her daughter (via @FightingIrish)

After thoroughly enjoying a 5-2 beatdown of Japan, earning the United States Women’s National Team their third World Cup, my mind, as it often does, started to think about the various angles the victory could be seen from. There’s Abby Wambach, the all-time leading goal scorer in women’s international competition, finally winning a World Cup in what she and the world knew was her final match, which she started from the bench. There’s a redemption angle as this 2015 squad avenged the 2011 squad whom had a last-minute collapse against Japan, leading to a loss via penalty kicks. There’s even a Notre Dame connection as alumna Shannon Boxx was able to add a World Cup victory to her impressive resumé that includes a national title.

The one angle, however, that I kept coming back to was that of expectations.

In the Women’s World Cup, the United States are expected to be a serious contender for the title and you don’t have to be a hardcore soccer fan to figure out why. There have only been seven Women’s World Cups (including this year’s) and the U.S. have never finished worse than third. The world’s leading scorer is on their roster and she supplanted none other than another American, Mia Hamm, for that title. The world’s best goaltender also calls America her home.

So it’s no surprise that the storylines leading up to and during the World Cup looked like what college football message boards and blogs would churn out from fans assuming nothing short of greatness. As an example, feel free to fire up Google and search for “Abby Wambach benched” to see all kinds of takes on what the U.S. should do with the aging and struggling striker.

That debate might as well have been the “Run the Damn Ball, Kelly” of U.S. soccer. One side looked to the identity of U.S. soccer as a Wambach-centered offense was the only-known recipe for American success since the days of Mia Hamm. The other saw the only path forward was to stop pretending the past was the present and have someone else step up with Wambach on the bench.

With this debate in mind, I thought about Landon Donovan, the U.S. Men’s National Team, and the decision to keep Donovan off of it for last year’s World Cup. While Donovan’s situation certainly shared some similarity with Wambach (and got just as much, if not more, press), the expectations for the potential impact of the move couldn’t have been further apart.

The men’s team might as well play in a different world when you compare them to the women. They have no real history of success and the best players in the world have never donned an American kit. Should the men ever win a World Cup, the reaction would basically be: “HOLY SHITBALLS, I CAN’T BELIEVE THAT HAPPENED!” as opposed to more of a feeling of “FINALLY!” that the women just delivered.

To keep the Notre Dame allegory going, the men are more like Notre Dame Basketball than Notre Dame Football in terms of expectations. You don’t expect them to win it all, but you certainly hope for the right combination of talent, coaching, and luck to result in a lightning strike that would be a World Cup win. That doesn’t mean things like coaching and performance get a free pass. The men are still expected to “go dancing” in the elimination bracket and not find themselves given the boot in the first round (unless they got a particularly nasty draw). Fans know the reality of the situation, but some signs of progress and success are expected.

Personally, I love this soccer to football (or football to football) expectation comparison. Trying to understand, and at times debate, the varying opinions and mindsets within the Notre Dame fanbase is certainly a favorite offseason exercise of mine. The reason I love this little comparison so much is because I’m able to put myself more in a “casual” fan’s mindset.

And by “casual”, I certainly don’t mean a lack of passion, a lack of desire to consume information, or even a lack of understanding of the game itself. Rather, I refer more to not falling into the more obsessive side of fandom and trying to break down every aspect of the game, deep diving into stats, or attempting to consume as much of the sport as possible including going outside your main cheering interest. I fall into the later when it comes to college football, but when it comes to soccer, I watch and react based on what I’ve seen and what I know about the sport, which is certainly more than enough to have a knowledgeable conversation about the game. In that more “casual” situation, expectation and emotion reign supreme.

Back in 2014, despite the men’s team getting a draw in a “group of death”, I found myself absolutely gutted when Portugal denied the U.S. hopes of a sure second round advancement with a last-minute goal to tie the game up. I also found myself cursing a suspect U.S. defense for allowing it to happen. The U.S. did manage to find their way into the knockout round; however, hope turned into nightmare as the U.S. forced Belgium into extra time in a 0-0 game only to watch Belgium go up 2-0 like it was nothing in the first extra half of play. The U.S. could never recover and I couldn’t help but wonder if keeping Donovan off the squad wasn’t a mistake that finally caught up as the squad looked completely exhausted in their extended match. After all, Donovan was the hero four years ago to help the U.S. make a rather impressive run in 2010. Surely, putting him in as a late sub would’ve helped.

And when the women lost in the 2011 finals, I was completely floored. I couldn’t even wrap my head around what was a collapse of, what I felt, was a superior team that had the game in control, but managed to give up not one, but two late leads. If that wasn’t enough, this very same team that bested Brazil 5-3 in penalty kicks in the quarterfinals couldn’t find the net, ultimately losing to Japan 3-1 on penalties.

In both situations, my expectations for each team’s success, as well as my expectations of what should promote success, dominate my overall reactions and reasoning. I suspect much is the same for many fans of many different teams. I don’t believe Notre Dame is an exception to that rule.

When your last measure of ultimate success was in 1988 with a team that ran the ball for over 200 yards/game and barely passed for over 100 yards/game, I can certainly understand a desire to return to those halcyon days in every way possible. Couple that with false promises of a return to glory: Ty Willingham’s smoke & mirror, turnover-luck-aided run in 2002 and Charlie Weis’ pass-heavy and defense-non-existent runs in 2005 and 2006. Then add a dash of Brian Kelly looking to lead Notre Dame back to the promised land with a young QB named Everett Golson, BK’s “guy” to run his spread offense, in 2012 only to be unmercifully destroyed by Alabama.

With all of that combined, I can certainly understand why systems and coaches that deviate from the 1988 baseline look like total failures in short order. After all, there has been no proof to the contrary to this point, especially if the expectation is claiming a national title and being in that hunt annually. And people, like myself, could give stats and provide a full frame of reference in comparison to the rest of the college football world until we’re blue in the face and it won’t matter one bit until consistent results are shown on the field equal to those expectations.

That doesn’t mean that I’ll stop doing my part in the everlasting ND Football debates, no matter what form they come in. After all, I’m a super-obsessive that can’t help myself. Plus, fandom, opinions, and the genesis of those opinions aren’t binary. A “casual” subset is only one of many in not just Notre Dame fandom, but all sports fandom, and everything described above certainly isn’t a catch-all for even that subset.

Expectations, however, are a constant. Even if the specifics vary, every fan has them and will forever continue to drive definitions and markers of success.

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Ryan Ritter

Editor-in-Chief
Texan by birth, Irish by choice.

First-generation Domer and a former student manager, HLS podcast host, HLS Sim creator, Extra Life streamer, and technical problem haver. You can find more non-Notre Dame related writing on his Patreon.

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