The Esthen ExchangeU.S. Women's National Soccer team is accustomed to being in the spotlight. And its players are no strangers to controversy.

So it should come as no surprise that team captain Lindsey Horan could be in line for some criticism after her comments to The Athletic in a recent interview about American soccer fans.

"Most of them aren't smart," Horan said. "They don’t know the game. They don’t understand. (But) it’s getting better and better."

The point she was trying to make was that soccer commentators on TV tend to shape public perception, especially of the USWNT.

"We’re always in the magnifying glass on every single thing we do or anything we say," Horan said.

The U.S. team took plenty of heat for its poor showing at the 2023 Women's World Cup − where Horan and Co. were bounced in the Round of 16 in a penalty-kick shootout against Sweden. The loss cost coach Vlatko Andonovski his job and put the USWNT into scramble mode in the run-up to the 2024 Olympics in Paris this summer.

"We need to get back to the football. The football is the most important thing," Horan said in the December interview. "We need to focus on the game. We need to focus on being the absolute best we can be."

New coach Emma Hayes won't take over officially until the European season ends in May, though she did meet with the team in December to help ease the transition.

With the Olympics getting underway in late July, Horan, 29, will have a lot of responsibility on her shoulders in the meantime.

"We need to change every bit of culture that we had prior to the last World Cup and going into this Olympics," she said, "because we need to win."