President Obama honors USWNT at White House for winning World Cup

The U.S. women's national team was honored at the White House Tuesday, with President Barack Obama saluting the squad for winning the Women's World Cup.

Author:
SI Staff
Publish date:
Oct 27, 2015

The U.S. women's national team has been honored with a rally in Los Angeles and a parade in New York. Now the World Cup-winning champions have been welcomed into the White House by President Barack Obama.

The USWNT was recognized at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue on Tuesday morning, getting the champions' right of passage in the East Room. Obama singled out U.S. Soccer president Sunil Gulati and manager Jill Ellis before turning his attention to players Sydney Leroux (congratulating her on marrying Dom Dwyer and for her dog, Boss, having 10,000 Twitter followers), Megan Rapinoe (for the fan-made corn maze design of her face), Becky Sauerbrunn ("her quiet dominance") and Abby Wambach ("her not-so-quiet dominance").

"These champions deserve all the attention that they've been getting. After 16 long years, too many heartbreaks, they flew north to put America back on top of the soccer world and they did it in style," Obama said.

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Obama then praised Carli Lloyd's World Cup final performance in which she scored a hat trick in the opening 16 minutes.

"I was explaining to the team and Carli, I had gotten my popcorn, I was all settling in. I'm thinking I've got a couple hours of tension and excitement and poof! It was gone. It was over," Obama said.

He then provided a tongue-in-cheek nomination for Lloyd for his pending vacancy in the Oval Office.

"Carli's performance was so good that by the time the game was over someone had changed her title on Wikipedia from 'Midfielder' to 'President of the United States.' Which by the way, the job's about to open up. What's another candidate in the mix? I guarantee you Carli knows more about being president than some of the folks who are running."

Obama closed by praising the team for its impact on the next generation.

"This team taught all of America's children that playing like a girl means you're a badass," Obama said, prior to being presented with a custom No. 44 jersey.

It wasn't the first time Obama addressed the U.S. women, as he called them the day after the 5-2 triumph over Japan in the final at BC Place.

Watch all of his latest remarks below: