The key to U.S. success? It might just be staying off social media

We’re just two days from the start of the 2023 Women’s World Cup and the U.S. women’s national team has been preparing for almost two weeks in New Zealand. On Monday, the players started answering questions from the media for the first time, and will continue to do so almost daily throughout the tournament. ESPN will be with the USWNT every step of the way, bringing reporting from inside the USWNT camp throughout the World Cup.

AUCKLAND, New Zealand — As the Women’s World Cup opener for the U.S. women’s national team draws closer, the chatter on social media is growing around both the competition itself and the U.S.’s chances of winning a third straight title. Just don’t expect the players to be keeping tabs.

Following the tournament-winning blueprint of the self-described “bubble” the team formed at the 2019 World Cup to shut out outside influences, many players on the team are taking the same approach again. So, feel free to critique the team or, if you must, send those mean tweets, but players for the most part won’t be reading.

Starting goalkeeper Alyssa Naeher says she pretty much left her cell phone in airplane mode back in 2019, and she plans to stay off social media again, although to a less extreme degree. “I’ve turned my phone on this time, so I’ve gotten away from airplane mode, but I still don’t have the social media stuff — I’ll stay off a lot of that,” she said. “I’ll keep maybe a little Instagram to stay connected to friends and family back home, but for the most part I’ve chosen to get off social media for a month.”

Midfielder and World Cup debutante Kristie Mewis is taking a similar approach — and is making a similar exception.

“I love Instagram so I don’t really feel I can give that up,” Mewis said, with a wry smile. “It kind of helps me decompress a little bit to look at unrealistic things like travel — beautiful things that get my mind off of what’s happening. So it’s a good distraction and I’m not giving that up.”

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OK, so: no Twitter, a little bit of Instagram. How about Threads, the new Twitter rival from the company behind Instagram? “I’m not gonna have Twitter up or that new Threads thing — I’m still not really sure how that works — but I need my Instagram,” Mewis said.

What about TikTok? “I don’t really know what TikTok is,” Naeher joked.

Midfielder Andi Sullivan hasn’t extracted herself from social media just yet, but she will by the time the USWNT plays their opening game against Vietnam on July 21. Yes, even Instagram — it’s the same exception she wants to make, but won’t.

“My plan is to go dark. It’s tough because like Kristie, I enjoy browsing, but I think that it’s just too easy to see something I don’t want to see, and I’m sure a little social media break is good for everyone once in a while. So my plan is, a few days from now is just shut it down.”

So why stay off social media during a World Cup? These players compete at a high level all year round — there are friendlies and the SheBelieves Cup, the NWSL regular season and playoffs, not to mention the NWSL Challenge Cup. What makes the World Cup an exception?

Well, a World Cup is, as Sullivan put it, “crazy,” and we’ve all seen the running gags of celebrities reading mean tweets about themselves. This will be Sullivan’s first World Cup, but she says the more experienced players have warned her: “The veterans on the team have explained and given examples of the craziness of the past, or they’ve just been like, ‘It’s gonna get crazier,’ and reiterated to lean on them if there’s something that we’re struggling with.”

Sullivan has already started to limit her time on social media — she stopped using Twitter more than a year ago and has been reducing her time across other platforms, making this a natural progression. Cutting out social media will allow her to maintain the right perspective during a tournament where it may feel like the eyes of the entire world are watching.

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“For a World Cup, there’s more attention, more commentary, more coverage, which is great, but at the same time I just want my perspective to be only on my circle — the people who are here, who see me every day,” she said. “The inner circle — that’s who I want to focus my attention on and not necessarily noise.”

Sophia Smith, another World Cup first-timer, is on the same page. “Deleting Twitter? Best thing I’ve ever done. I have no idea what’s happening,” she said on Wednesday.

The “bubble” the team created in 2019 was extraordinary effective. When players were asked about non-soccer questions — which was pretty often, given Megan Rapinoe‘s high-profile criticism from then-president Donald Trump — they pleaded ignorance. Even then-coach Jill Ellis was in the bubble — her response to a non-soccer question back then was typical: “When you’re in your bubble, it’s not something that permeates.” Whether or not that’s why the team won the World Cup in 2019 is impossible to say, but it clearly didn’t hurt.

If the lure of social media was strong in 2019, it doesn’t figure to be any less enticing in 2023, but for now, the players are steadfast in their social media blackouts. Well, except for a smidgen of Instagram, of course.