There is a universe where Casey Short is an Olympian

I’ve realized this is the specific sentiment I keep repeating to myself as the SheBelieves tournament kicks off, and I think I’m not so much predicting the future as acknowledging a coping mechanism. I can't pretend this extends to rational soccer analysis, but maybe radical thinking is necessary in this particular situation. It’s time to stretch the bounds of reality.

The concept of magical thinking seems to go hand in hand with a longer journey I’m on this year regarding a number of Red Stars narratives. In the wake of the ephemeral nature of Chicago’s 2019 season, I keep feeling an urgent impulse to recognize joy in the smaller acts of doing things well. American sports inherently hate this - we believe the point of contests is to determine a winner. While it’d be fun if every team in the NWSL had multiple opportunities at a trophy, that’s not the way we operate here. We want one nameable champion - a permanent rendering of the best of the current genre. Sometimes I actually resent this process for being so intense.  We’re surrounded by heavy heads; so few people get any time with the crown.

I also think over time I’ve grown tired of propagating historical fiction, and of assigning motive to decisions I don’t understand. If Casey Short doesn’t become an Olympian, I’m not sure I’m the right person to come up with with a good reason why. So I’ve decided to talk about the universe where she wins.

I’d also argue that soccer lends itself to the multi-verse more than most sports. One of the best things about the game itself is that one million possible universes emerge with every pass made within the 90 minute window. The ball takes a bad bounce on one end, maybe a player slips on the other, and every missed chance in front of goal is a shatter-point of possibility. This definitely refers to results but also when there's a bad rainstorm in Cary, North Carolina and suddenly we're carrying drainage memes into the uncertain future.

But back to Casey Short. No matter what happens in the next 6 months, her journey with the USWNT has stretched the realm of possibility. She’s made more money as a professional women’s soccer player than most, and she’s been proven essential to the program. When Alyssa Naeher was asked about Short’s contributions as someone who didn’t quite make the World Cup roster, she summed up the relationship as “bigger than that”. It does feel bigger than that, but not necessarily in the ways a player can carry with them.

We all know the narrative arc this story is usually supposed to take. A player gets close to the final roster, doesn’t quite make the cut, and either eventually fades from the conversation or surges into a core spot on the team. But Short, through no fault of her own, has done neither. She keeps winning spots, and getting paid, and never quite becoming the USWNT roster mainstay that we’re all accustomed to. She’s unique both in her distance and the program’s inability to let her go. Her role has clearly been integral to the success of the team, but the takeaway is in never fully being able to take part in celebrating that success.

I do however have to acknowledge that the problem with multi-verse reasoning is that you have to consider all equal and opposite possibilities. I suppose, reluctantly, that there’s also a universe where Casey Short is looked over by both Rory Dames and Jill Ellis and never features for either the Chicago Red Stars or the USWNT. Step on a butterfly, and the world changes. I do suppose there’s also a universe where Casey Short makes this roster, and we all subsequently perish in a typhoon. That’d be a bummer.

But it’s possible that the reason this particular world we live in feels so infuriating is because it sometimes appears like the distinction between who does and does not get to be a World Cup champion is completely arbitrary. Such is the curse of the USWNT’s ongoing excellence. From the outside, the difference between staying home and playing one group stage game against Chile is minimal, at best. McCall Zerboni could’ve participated in Allie Long’s practice sessions. Casey Short could’ve done a very convincing Emily Sonnett impression in training. The functionality of their absence to the team means nothing, but to these individual players it also means absolutely everything.

What I’m saying is that there is a universe where Casey Short is a World Cup champion.

In a slight fold of consciousness not too far from our own, Ellis cares about club form, or simply takes one more person to bolster the defense and one fewer attacker who was saved for a crisis that never came. Short maybe deepens locker room alliances, and makes charismatic celebratory content after the final whistle. She gets subbed into the final with 20 minutes to go, and she doesn't make any mistakes.

I think I prefer that timeline, because the universe likely closer to ours is the one where Ellis still leaves Short off the roster, and then the USWNT loses. Leaving Short at home was a fatal flaw in the vision, but due to a blistering generation of talent and a world not quite caught up, no one had to answer for it. Ellis brought a roster based on locker room chemistry and the ghost of a 2016 exit that prioritized goal-scoring over everything else, and it worked. In retrospect, I feel confident saying it asked too much of its players; it's going to take years to figure out exactly what (if any) ramifications that might have.

But they also won the whole damn thing, and it wasn’t particularly close. They never had to significantly rotate the backline, they scored early in almost every game, and they held on just long enough to never have to leave that first gear. Ellis’s plan worked because she had a stronger, deeper team than everybody else. She ran with a shallow tactical plan, and while it took a toll, it emerged victorious. 

But somewhere out there there is a universe where Kelley O’Hara’s tired ankles don’t hold up quite so well, and Crystal Dunn can’t perform the Herculean mental task in front of her, and the USWNT loses its grip. There is a universe where roster decisions get questioned in the wake of defeat. This is the universe where they lose. Jill Ellis’s legacy is tarnished, and she doesn’t get to walk into the sunset a two-time World Cup champion manager. 

As frustrating as the 2019 roster process was, that universe wouldn’t right any wrongs. If the USWNT had failed in France, the takeaways would’ve been different than the actualities, and the consequences would’ve been far more severe. Their failure likely would have become a referendum for the validity of women first, and of all of American soccer second. It wouldn’t have helped Casey Short, and it certainly wouldn’t have helped any of us. As universes go, it’s worse than the one we live in, as difficult as that might be to imagine.

So now we're ramping up for the Olympics, stuck at our own shatter-point, where we have to decide if we foolishly believe in second chances. The Olympic tournament really isn't set up for the emphasis placed on it by the USWNT, and its own arbitrary roster rules reflect that. It’s also revolutionary to have so few players retire after a World Cup cycle, which is a testament to the way the sport is changing. It’s probably going to keep Casey Short from becoming an Olympian.

But even now, there is still a universe where the nagging injuries that tend to pop up in the middle of the summer take a toll on the USWNT’s already thin backline. There’s a universe where a new coaching regime decides that club form matters. There’s room for Casey Short on this roster. 

While I take solace in the universe where this happens, I don’t know if it's the one we’re in right now. The best stories in sports are supposed to lean towards justice, but I’m not sure this one does. I know Short is going to handle things like a professional, and that she’s good enough. But soccer is a tricky game, and you can't control the way things break down.

I can’t change what happens for Casey Short this year, but the good news we're all stuck in this universe together. We're constantly surrounded by things we can change, and many more that we can’t. All we can do is keep showing up, and lending our voices, and celebrating joy when it shows up in front of us.