If I were a teenage girl, I’d have a poster of a purple-haired American footballer on my bedroom wall. It’s odd how Megan Rapinoe’s arms-outstretched celebration is now as famous as Farah’s Mobot or Usain’s lightning bolt when it’s the default gesture of every sportsman, from century-scorer to Wimbledon champ. Even odder that she alone is called arrogant.

Yet with a knowing smile, Rapinoe both mimics masculine triumph and parodies it. Here is that rarest quality in a woman, the one drummed out of little girls: swagger. That she is a lesbian is not incidental. It means Rapinoe doesn’t play that wearying game of feminine dress-up. She isn’t fussed about male approval, even the president’s. She is unapologetic about her athletic body, her skill, her