The good news: Team USA is through to the knockout stages. The draw with Portugal really didn’t mean all that much, because the Netherlands beat Vietnam by such a huge margin that there wasn’t much hope of USA scoring enough to take first place. Now for the bad news: USA’s second-place finish means they face the Swedes, who had the group wrapped up and shrugged off Argentina to end the group stage without getting out of second gear. That USA failed to score could be chalked up to poor finishing. What’s really concerning is that the Portuguese sliced open the defense so easily with a few passes, and (as everyone is pointing out) if Ana Carpeta had put her breakaway opportunity in the back of the net instead of off the post, USA would have suffered a humiliating group-stage exit. Then again, they didn’t, whereas Canada, Brazil, Italy, and Germany all did. As Monty Python once sang:
Let’s get to the questions.
What are USA’s prospects in the round of 16?
Your guess is as good as mine. The obvious fix would be to restore Alana Cook to the starting lineup and move Julie Ertz into defensive midfield to shore up the team’s spine. We’d like to think Coach Vlatko has that and a few other moves up his sleeve that he’s been saving for the knockout stages. That would account for his passiveness and unwillingness to use his bench in the group stage. Wouldn’t it? I mean, wouldn’t it?
I ask the questions here. What do we think of Carli Lloyd’s remarks criticizing Team USA’s performance?
Lots of people are acting like she drove a truck full of explosives through the front door of a VA hospital, but I say the two-time World Cup winner has a right to her opinion. Possibly her remarks were somewhat misguided — the team’s problem is lack of direction and experience rather than want-to — but she’s surely correct to say that the squad isn’t playing well. I’ve won zero World Cups, and I’ll probably take about 0.001 percent of the crap she’s getting for saying the same thing as her. For their part, the team seems pretty sanguine about their chances against Sweden. We’ll see if that’s the right attitude.
Who actually did well?
It’s not encouraging that other top contenders have grown into the tournament. England trashed China 6-1, while Japan crushed Spain 3-0. Some of the prognosticators were tipping Spain after their lopsided victories over Zambia and Costa Rica, and now La Roja has received a sobering reality check. Australia faced a must-win game and delivered a 4-0 tonking of Canada, in which world-beating goalkeeper Kailen Sheridan looked anything but. The Matildas won without Sam Kerr, too. The world’s most complete striker will have a few extra days to recover from her injury. It would be a shame if she missed the World Cup in her own country. One of Africa’s feel-good stories was Zambia. The Copper Queens were already eliminated going into their last group-stage game, but they decided to play for pride and ran out 3-1 winners over Costa Rica. That’s something to take back to southern Africa. Maybe it’ll even get them a coach who doesn’t coerce his players into sex. That’d be great.
How about another feel-good story?
In a battle of Italy and South Africa’s shaky defenses, South Africa’s offense won out. The Italians converted an early penalty through Gianna Caruso, but then Benedetta Orsi smashed a ball 25 yards into her own net. Le Azzurre couldn’t hold their shape and kept letting the South Africans run at goal with the ball, which is precisely what they do best. The winning goal was scored by Thembi Kgatlana, who dedicated the goal to three family members who died while she was in New Zealand. The first-ever World Cup win for the Banyana Banyana ensured that they survived the group stage. Now they get the Dutch in a former colony vs. colonizer grudge match. Here’s hoping they get equal pay from their soccer federation.
What else was shocking?
Even more outrageous than an Italian team with a leaky defense is a Brazil team lacking offensive creativity. The Brazilians needed a win over Jamaica in their last group-stage match to go on, but instead limped to a goalless draw that sent Da Reggae Girlz to the next round for the first time. The great Marta started the match in an attempt to inspire her team, but her World Cup career ended even more anticlimactically than Indiana Jones’ saga did. Maybe the biggest shock of this tournament or any other Women’s World Cup was Germany failing to advance from the group stage after they could only draw a woeful South Korea team. Five years ago, the South Korean men knocked the Germans out of the World Cup, and now the same has played out with the women. (The Germans’ one goal in their match came from Alexandra Popp, who deserved better than her coaches and teammates gave her.) That meant that Morocco made history as the first Arabic/Muslim team to get out of the group stage, with their 1-0 win over Colombia. The Atlas Lionesses take on France, with Morocco’s weepy hipster intellectual coach Reynald Pedros looking to beat his home country. That will probably be all she wrote for the underdogs, but hopefully it shows the other Arab nations that supporting their women’s teams is worth it.
Did anything else of note happen?
Panama was already eliminated before their final game against France, and Las Canaleras apparently landed on “Screw it” and decided they didn’t care how many goals they let Les Bleues score, they were going to score some goals themselves before their tournament ended. The result was a wildly entertaining 6-3 win for the French, with Marta Cox scoring Panama’s first-ever Women’s World Cup goal with a hellacious free kick. It’s too good not to take another look at.
That’s how you open your World Cup account.
When is USA’s next game?
4 a.m. Central time on Sunday morning. Set your alarms, and blame the team for failing to win the group and making you get up at that hour.
