Before the official opening whistle blew to signal the beginning of Wednesday’s first-round Olympic soccer match, the U.S. women’s soccer teams took a knee, ostensibly to call attention to “inequality and discrimination.” The U.S. women’s team was kneeling to demonstrate solidarity with the Black Lives Matter (BLM) Marxists.

This new era of activist athletes is distressing, to say the least. The only positive is that the players didn’t actually kneel during each team’s respective national anthem, which provocative players like Megan Rapinoe have been known to do.

This writer has been playing soccer since age of four, including collegiate competition on a scholarship and then coaching. I have always taken deep pride in the fact that our U.S. women’s team has been such a powerhouse on the world stage, growing up admiring players like Mia Hamm, Briana Scurry, Michelle Akers, and Brandi Chastain. These women were the pioneers of the women’s soccer movement, facing steep odds in their disfavor. These women taking pride in their country and being willing to step into a new frontier and popularize the sport in the states was something to take pride in as an American woman. Whenever our U.S. women’s team was playing in the Olympics or World Cup, everything stopped in our household so we could watch the game. We were so proud of our girls.

But there is no pride in the way the current generation of self-centered wokesters seeks to be “groundbreaking.” Its activism is based on a dreadful narrative. The BLM anecdote is antithetical to American freedom and the ideals set about in the Constitution. BLM doesn’t actually care about black lives. Rather, it wants to further an agenda steeped in Marxism, destroying the institutions including that of the nuclear family. BLM purports to believe in equity — which is not to be confused with equality — and that meritocracy is a white ideal.

Don’t these women soccer players understand that this is the antithesis to their own achievements? In a world where BLM gets its way, it wouldn’t be the most talented that get to represent the U.S. It would be those who are the most “oppressed” who get that honor.

The U.S. team on Wednesday lost 0-3. It’s sad to watch, but it’s even sadder to realize these women don’t understand what their team used to represent to players and soccer lovers alike. Perhaps most perniciously, they’re spreading their poison — not only did Sweden kneel, but England and Chile did as well. Just another way in which American leadership is taking a knee.