For three group stage games in this World Cup, the US women’s soccer team didn’t play its best. But still it survived.
In one Round of 16 knockout game, US women finally played their best. And yet they were ousted.
And they have no one to blame but themselves.
The shocking end of the quest for an unprecedented three-peat for the two-time defending champions teaches one of sports cruelest lessons: What might have been.
Not for what happened on the field early Sunday morning in Melbourne, where the American side finally put together the brand of end-to-end, connected, aggressive soccer that brought them to the tournament ranked No. 1 in the world. Nightmares of missed penalty kicks will surely haunt Megan Rapinoe, Sophia Smith, and Kelley O’Hara, just as the near-miraculous double save Alyssa Naeher almost made on the clincher will live on in replay infamy. Naeher wasn’t wrong when she said, “We just lost the World Cup by a millimeter.”
But she wasn’t completely right either. What the United States will, and should, truly rue for years to come are those initial round robin games, when the team was alternately disconnected, uninspired and ultimately, outplayed, ceding the group, and a much more favorable Round of 16 opponent, to the Netherlands.
This final loss to Sweden, a stunning, heartbreaking decision reached after seven rounds of penalty kicks, after 120 scoreless minutes against the world’s No. 3 team, after so many point-blank saves by Swedish keeper Zecira Musovic, is nothing to be ashamed of. It was an absolute banger of a game, a showcase for a women’s international field that gets more and more competitive by the year, a chess match of lineup changes and substitutions that had no choice but to finally crown a winner.
It is Sweden that moves on, next facing sizzling Japan in the quarterfinals, while the United States heads home, the earliest exit from the World Cup in program history.
The story is found in those first three games, when the United States finished second in group play behind the Netherlands, three games that included a paltry four total goals, three of them in the opener against overmatched Vietnam. The story is found way back in that opening 3-0 win, when the U.S. could have scored three, four or five more goals, when veteran Alex Morgan missed a penalty in regulation play, when the lack of finishing rang an alarm that no one came to answer.
The story is in coach Vlatko Andonovsky not finding the right combinations in those three early games, of not using his substitutions enough to build better connections through the midfield, of relying on the retiring stalwart Rapinoe to find some old magic (that she never found) rather than, say, a young firecracker like Alyssa Thompson for some late-game energy.
The story is in a national program facing some hard truths now, that Andonovsky may not be the answer moving forward, that former champs like Rapinoe, Morgan, O’Hara and Julie Ertz might need to move aside for the younger set, that the rest of the world is catching up and no longer intimidated by the mere sight of the red, white, and blue.
The story now is about Smith, about Trinity Rodman, about Thompson and defender Naomi Girma, who emerged as the best American player of them all.
“I think you saw it on the field today, being able to come out of the group stage where we didn’t perform our best, to this type of performance, this is what this team is going to be with these young players,” captain Linsdey Horan said through her post-game tears. Horan was the hard-luck shooter of the game, denied multiple times from by Muscovic and missing another header off a corner kick when she hit the crossbar.
“First and foremost I am so proud of the team,” she insisted. “A lot went into this performance, changing gears and playing like us, playing our style, being confident and patient. We went out and did it. We played beautiful football today. We entertained. But we didn’t score. This is part of the game, penalties, they suck. They’re cruel. But I’m proud of every player that stepped up to take a penalty today. Score or miss, it’s courageous. I’m proud of my team.”
But pride can’t change the result.
It was the American players who were left standing motionless or hunched over in pain, their blank stares slowly pooling with tears while Abba’s “Dancing Queen” serenaded the victorious Swedes.
“Just devastated,” Morgan said. “Feels like a bad dream. I don’t know. The team put everything out there tonight. I feel like we dominated but it doesn’t matter. We’re going home. It’s the highs and lows of the sport of soccer. It doesn’t feel great.”
Tara Sullivan is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at tara.sullivan@globe.com. Follow her @Globe_Tara.
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