Recently retired USWNT star Abby Wambach was arrested for driving a vehicle under the influence of intoxicants in Oregon this weekend after she allegedly failed to stop at a red light and failed a sobriety test. She apologized publicly, explaining that she drove home after a dinner with friends and she took responsibility for what happened.

Some United States men’s national team players took the opportunity to crack some public jokes on Twitter about it.

Bedoya’s comment refers to an interview Wambach gave shortly after her retirement when she said that a problem with USMNT coach Jurgen Klinsmann is that he “brought in these foreign guys, it’s just not something that I believe in.”

Altidore’s comments are a reference to the night Hope Solo’s husband Jerramy Stevens was arrested for DUI while driving one of the team vans.

In a column I know that I’m supposed to pass some judgment here about who is right and who is wrong in this situation, but this is one of those special situations where everyone involved is behaving pretty crummily.

Wambach should not have gotten behind the wheel if she’d been drinking. Plain and simple. It’s just a horrible thing to do, and puts other people at risk, and she shouldn’t have done it.

(Getty Images)

Likewise, Wambach’s comments deriding Klinsmann for bringing in foreign-born players into the USMNT was off-base and a dumb thing to say. It was a misguided attempt at launching her career as a tough-talking analyst by deriding foreign-born Americans. Many of these players were born abroad because one of their parents was serving in the United States military and stationed overseas. If that doesn’t count as being born true enough American then I don’t know what does.

Alejandro Bedoya had every right to be upset about her comments on behalf of his foreign-born teammates. (Bedoya was born in New Jersey and raised in Florida.) But also, it wasn’t the time. Wambach made a mistake, she owned up to it and apologized, and taking a shot at her publicly when she’s down isn’t the way to go.

There’s no defense or plausible explanation for Jozy Altidore’s tweet.

(Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports)

This is all so counterproductive as well. As the USWNT fights for equal pay and both groups work to build up soccer in this country, the last thing they need is to fire shots at each other. Landon Donovan exemplified this last week when he said that men bring in more income and should be paid more. It angered the players on the women’s team, as it should, and he later apologized.

It also distracted fans from the real issues at hand here.

USWNT players are underpaid and FIFA’s treatment of women soccer players is deplorable. Former president Sepp Blatter made it clear he viewed the women’s game as nothing more than a sideshow, from the time he suggested the women wear shorter shorts to the time he had no idea who Marta, one of the best women’s players in the world maybe ever, was at an annual FIFA Awards. Blatter was the shining example, but FIFA has made it clear that, top to bottom, there was little respect for the women’s game.

At the same time, the men’s national team is clawing to get the respect they deserve. You could argue that both teams are underpaid for the value they bring to U.S. Soccer, and if these players ever want to launch soccer into the realm of the NBA and NFL, the men will need the USWNT — World Cup winners and by far the more successful of the two — to do so.

(AP Photo/Hans Punz)

Fighting with each other accomplishes nothing. It distracts from the central problems at hand. The men and women’s national teams should be working together to grow soccer in this country. Tearing each other down does nothing.

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