The weak ass excuses were worse than the play.
At some point, the other team is just horribly outmatched and it is an awkward situation. You don’t want to be patronizing. So like yeah, 8-0 even 10-0 is excusable. But 13-0 and you score the last goal at 90+2?
“Oh, they need to play against the best and learn a lesson to get better.” Yeah, because they would have learned nothing from a 12-0 beating. Each goal just makes them smarter.
“You can’t take your foot off the gas.” Ummm... yes, you can. It’s easy. If your team ego is so fragile that playing at 90% for 15 minutes screws you up for a tournament then maybe you are the team that needs to learn a lesson. Every team in every sport can take their foot off the gas. Like in racing if you are up 5 laps with 4 laps to go, they will literally take their foot off the gas.
“They worked so hard to get here, they deserve it.” No. The whole point of sportsmanship is to consider the other side and not just yourself. Did the Thai players not work hard? They don’t even get paid.
“What about goal differential?” Well, it’s unlikely Sweden is going to win by a dozen goals. But even if they did, then they were assholes. You play Sweden and you beat them. If you lose, then blame yourself for not beating them. Not for failing to score a dozen goals against Thailand. And again, that’s the whole point of sportsmanship. If you lose because Sweden were dicks, then you lose. There are thing more important than winning.
You can play pretty hard, without being patronizing, in ways that still help your team. Like letting them have the ball a bit so you can work on your leaky-ass defense. Work on maintaining possession. Or you know, keep scoring but keep the celebrations to a minimum. There were dozens of ways they could have been less Dickinson, and they chose not to do any of them.
They 100% ran up the score, and if that does not bother you... okay. There are some people who are legitimately not bothered by thing like this and would be fine if they were on the receiving end. I get it. No one killed anyone here. I don’t think anyone should be fined or anything. It’s just a game. But don’t come up with ridiculous justifications.
Or okay, put it like this. I think that the Thai women’s team learned a valuable lesson here and will only be stronger for this. So, wanting only the best for USWNT, I hope that someone will teach us a similarly valuable lesson.
But yeah, also not good for the team. I think that the SOP here is you pull back a little knowing the game is won. And the other team, also knowing the game is decided also pulls back a little. No one gets hurt, you save some energy for the next game. But if you’re going to play like it’s 0-0 in the 90th minute, then expect the other team to tackle like it’s 0-0 in the 90th minute.