CLEMSON, S.C. -- Deyna Castellanos could be forgiven if she were short on words and energy to feed the controversy du jour. The Florida State sophomore had, after all, just played all but 20 seconds Thursday night in a 2-2 draw at Clemson.
That effort, which included her ACC-leading 15th goal of the season and a yellow card when she didn't mind her words around the referee, came at the end of a whirlwind six days that took her from Tallahassee, Florida, to London and back again -- and then on to a South Carolina night that the Venezuelan noted was rather too chilly for her taste.
It was that trip to London, the invitation extended as one of three finalists for FIFA's player of the year award, that landed her, however unwittingly, in a controversy. In comments to the BBC, United States women's national team star Megan Rapinoe blasted FIFA for Castellanos' inclusion and said she couldn't take the award seriously if she didn't know one of the finalists.
It was a farce if one of the finalists, in Rapinoe's words, was just "some random" amateur player.
On this night, the random amateur player wasn't interested in diminishing anyone else's résumé.
"I don't have comments about that," Castellanos said after her first game since returning to the U.S. "She has her opinion. I'm fine with that. I respect her. She is still ... an idol for me."
That was more than Florida State coach Mark Krikorian offered. Choosing diplomacy over advocacy for his player, Krikorian declined to even address Rapinoe's comments. It was left to Seminoles captain Natalia Kuikka, just returned from international duty with Finland herself, to express frustration about the shadow Rapinoe cast over a teammate's week to remember.
"We're all women," Kuikka said. "We all should support one another. Especially now we're talking about all the equality in the soccer game, and I think we should hold each other in a better standard and not focus on shaming and putting your own women down."
Rapinoe obviously felt that making a larger point about the sexist attitudes and inequalities still rampant in international soccer (and hardly eradicated from the domestic version) was worth any collateral damage. Few take stands as willingly or as eloquently as Rapinoe. This wasn't eloquent. This one she got wrong, in style if not substance. In backing the bus over Castellanos, which is surely what she did in using her platform to ridicule a young player, she diminished someone whose soccer life has been spent fighting a male culture that would do the same.
Rapinoe chose an award shortlist, one not determined by FIFA bureaucrats but instead a mix of coaches, fans, media and players, as a more worthy fight for the future of the women's game than a Spanish-speaking, South American rising star. She didn't choose wisely.
Also fully stipulated is that Rapinoe isn't wrong on the substance of her complaint. The men's finalists with whom Castellanos mingled were Lionel Messi, Neymar Jr. and Cristiano Ronaldo. It is impossible to imagine one of them being omitted for a teenager who starred in a youth event and for some professional club's academy team. There are women at the highest levels of the club and international game who are more accomplished -- the likes of Samantha Kerr of Australia and the NWSL's Sky Blue or Pernille Harder of Denmark and Wolfsburg.
There are always curious decisions when it comes to awards -- see Manchester United star David de Gea's omission from the finalists for best goalkeeper this year or Northern Ireland cult hero Will Grigg's puzzling place among the 25 finalists for Europe's best player in 2016. But voters selecting Castellanos on the strength of leading unheralded Venezuela to the semifinals of the under-17 Women's World Cup, her freshman season at Florida State and a summer semi-pro league in the United States is impossible to explain as anything but a function of gender when the top 24 vote-getters on the men's side all played for giant professional clubs.
The accomplishments of Kerr, Harder and others simply aren't treated the same way as men's are.
Yet Castellanos isn't the nobody that Rapinoe suggested, and thus the nobody that mainstream media in this country all too readily accepted her as. That damage is no less consequential.
For one thing, while not the most substantive measure, Castellanos has nearly a million followers on Instagram, almost twice as many as Rapinoe and more than either women's winner Lieke Martens or fellow finalist Carli Lloyd. It seems some people have heard of Castellanos.
"If you don't follow soccer, you don't know her," Kuikka said. "But if you do, you should know her."
In the weeks leading up to the FIFA award ceremony, television crews from Telemundo, beIN and ESPN Deportes descended on Tallahassee to put together Spanish-language features on Castellanos. She was a finalist last winter for female athlete of the year in the Premios Univision Deportes, an award show put on by the Spanish-language network for Hispanic athletes. Her Venezuelan U17 team was also collectively nominated as best newcomer.
From the time she started playing at 5, following her brother's lead, until she was nearly ready to leave for Florida State, she played primarily with and against boys because there weren't similar opportunities for girls. Soccer wasn't a sport for girls. Even her own dad wasn't keen on her playing initially.
For a passionate portion of the soccer world that desperately needs more on the women's side, which is to say the Spanish- (or Portuguese-)speaking world, she is already someone.
The goal against Clemson won't make her extensive personal highlight reel, but it was nifty all the same. From the top of the 18-yard box, Castellanos chipped a ball toward goal, spun around the defender and, off a touch from a nearby teammate, flicked the ball over the goalkeeper. She is not as complete a player as Morgan Brian was as a college senior. She might not even be as complete a player as Stanford senior Andi Sullivan is now. But as a finisher and a creative presence in the final third, moving with the ball at her feet or driving shots and service from distance, Castellanos plays at a different level than most college players, a world-class level.
"She's just a clever, clever player," said Alabama coach Wes Hart, a former Florida State assistant who faced Castellanos this season. "She anticipates very well, has got great touch. She's creative. She can beat you in so many different ways. ... She reads the game, some of the little cues she's able to pick up on, that's what I've noticed about her."
Castellanos was a finalist for the wrong award. Every four years, the World Cup honors the tournament's best young player. The annual FIFA presentation does not. Had that been her ticket to London, no one would have given it a second thought. Instead, someone who should represent the best hopes of the future was turned into the poster child for, again as Rapinoe put it, an "old, male and stale" past as she mingled with Martens, Ronaldo and the rest.
"That was amazing," Castellanos said. "They are normal humans. They are really good athletes, great soccer players, but they are still humans. [Seeing that] was the best part."
It is a shame Rapinoe saw only acceptable collateral damage for a cause instead of another human.
