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Imagine you're walking down the street and you see someone famous. Really famous. What do you do?

Play it cool or stop and stare? Play it cool.

But also, yes, stop and stare.

Now others have spotted this a-lister. They're staring too and some of them aren't playing it cool at all.

Now imagine you're not the one staring at the celebrity. You are the celebrity, staring back.

Oh, you've got pots of money, adoring fans and a big house. But look, you've also got all of us watching, judging.

Being really, really famous, it's not easy.

From Wondery, I'm Anneli Young-Griffy, and I'm Emily Lloyd-Sainey.

And this is Terribly Famous, our new podcast which shakes you right inside the lives of our most dazzling celebrities to find out what it's like to walk in their shoes.

Listen to Terribly Famous wherever you get your podcasts.

Who knows Emily? You may even gain a newfound appreciation for being an nobody.

I don't think that came out how you meant it. I know what I said.

Well, they're waiting. They're going to check.

Last week, the U.S. Women's National Team winners of two consecutive World Cups and the favorites to win the tournament again this year were eliminated in the first round of the knockout stages by Sweden.

It was a stunning development that has led to the resignation of head coach Vlako Anonowski and a whole lot of criticism.

In totality, this was a failure of a World Cup. The concern for me is while everybody else has progressed, the U.S., rather than also progressing, has regressed.

Today, Jeff Ruder of the Athletic, breaks down what went wrong for the U.S. at this year's World Cup, how the rest of the world has caught up to the U.S. women and where the program goes from here.

From Wondering, I'm Anders Keltow. It's Friday, August 18th, and this is The Lead.

Jeff Ruder, we spoke a little over a month ago just as the Women's World Cup was about to kick off when we talked about what it would be like for you to cover a soccer tournament that is 16 times zones away.

So let me start by asking, how are you doing, man? Can you understand any of the words coming out of my mouth right now?

It's, yeah, it's fuzzy and your audio quality is perfect. Yeah, it's been, it's been a wild month, especially balancing everything that's going on on the North American continent with Lino Messi and all this other stuff too that comes into my job where it's just been.

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