This interview is one of four cover features for Issue 33 of MUNDIAL. To read it in print, become a subscriber today.
Megan Rapinoe still tastes the salt on her upper lip. Still feels the Parc de Princes trembling. Still hears the explosion as her free kick, whipped, low, hard, through the mess of legs in the box, crashes into the back of the net. She remembers it all vividly.
June 28th, 2019, Parc des Princes, Paris. A World Cup quarterfinal. USA v France, the hosts. 45,595 fans. 35C. Sweltering. Packed. Electric.
I remember it vividly too. Having saved up the money to be able to travel across the Atlantic Ocean to France, I could not wait to witness the greatest tournament in the world in person. I’d been managing to move around the country okay with some loose French from school and got tickets for the Spain game in Reims, which required a beautiful train journey through the Champagne region. There were two Rapinoe goals that evening, too. Both penalties. Poise. Precision. Pink hair.
And although I hadn’t got the funds left to get into the Parc des Princes that evening, I still felt like I was there. Watching football in a bar surrounded by locals is sometimes even more consuming than being in the stadium. And that evening, glued to a screen in the 11th arrondissement of Paris, I couldn’t have wished for more. Rapinoe’s two goals, Alex Morgan’s flair still flowing from the five she scored in her first match of the tournament, that noise. With so many French voices around me, I felt like Wendie Renard was marking me or Amandine Henry was running me in circles. I found myself forgetting to blink as I watched. I was completely captivated. I had been waiting for times like this.
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