Winner of The Week: The U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team

America loves nothing more than a winner.

For the past month, the leading women of U.S. soccer have been trouncing international opponents, showing no mercy and looking like complete badasses as they did it. Today, they were feted with a ticker-tape parade through downtown Manhattan, an honor usually reserved for astronauts, the Yankees, or back in the fifties, some cooler international royalty.

The final match, played last Sunday, where the U.S. women triumphed over Japan, was the most-watched soccer game in U.S. History, proving the U.S. loves women’s soccer, and possibly even more than that, a group of true winners.

Photos by Matthew Lewis/FIFA/Getty Images