CNN —
US goalkeeper Alyssa Naeher stood alone holding the ball and inhaled deeply, her eyes wide in disbelief, as Sweden’s players raced pitchside to form a joyous heap of yellow on the grass. Some of her teammates were in tears. “Feels like a bad dream,” Alex Morgan would later tell Fox Sports.
The match was over, the US defeated by Sweden on penalties in the last 16, and gone were the dreams of making history. The team that had cleared the path for all others had been caught. This was a changing of the guard in women’s soccer.
It isn’t that the US has never lost a women’s soccer match, but it last suffered defeat at a World Cup 12 years ago and has never been knocked out of the tournament at such an early stage.
This is a country that had won four of the previous eight editions of the tournament and had always reached the semifinals. Now, it is out having failed to make it to the quarterfinals. It will take time for that to register with players and fans.
For decades, ever since that first World Cup win in 1991, the US has been the standard-bearer in women’s soccer, the dominant force on the pitch, its leading voice off it.
As First Lady Jill Biden wrote on social media, addressing her country’s defeated team: “You made this sport matter.”
Perhaps, in time, even those in the US will come to regard this loss as a positive development for the women’s game because no sport or competition thrives in a hegemony.
Three of the four former World Cup winners are no longer in the tournament, while the so-called underdogs have thrived. As the US team itself posted on social media after the match, “This year’s Women’s World Cup is a testament to the growth of women’s soccer on a global scale …”
The penalty shootout went to sudden death. Robert Cianflone/Getty Images
But for all the gloss, of how the sport is more competitive than ever, more popular than ever, better funded than ever, questions will still be asked: how did this team fail so badly?
Four years ago, when the US won its second successive title, the team was undoubtedly the best in the world. With Megan Rapinoe in her pomp, the US was confident and ruthless. There was the record 13-0 win over Thailand, while France, England and the Netherlands were all dispatched on the way to the title.
Much has been written about the American squad’s struggles in this tournament, the tactics have been criticized as has coach Vlatko Andonovski’s substitutions.
There was just one victory in the group stage and a goalpost came to the team’s rescue against Portugal, preventing the Iberian nation from scoring a late winner which would’ve ended the US’ participation at the group stage. On the basis of the group stages, that the US did not end this tournament as the champion is not a surprise.
Plenty has been said about the mentality of the US this last week, too – former player Carli Lloyd was particularly vocal in her criticism following the draw with Portugal – but to put this defeat down to the disintegration of the country’s famed winning mentality would be too simplistic.
“That’s our secret sauce, it’s the insatiable desire to win,” Rapinoe told CNN Sport before the start of the tournament. But defeat doesn’t mean the team lacked the desire to win. It did, however, lack the killer instinct of old. For the first time in back-to-back World Cup games, the US had failed to score.
While the performance was poor against Portugal, the US was better than Sweden in Melbourne on Sunday and could’ve won handsomely. The US had 21 shots on goal, 11 on target which an inspired Sweden goalkeeper Zećira Mušović saved, accumulating the most saves by a keeper in a match at the competition to date.
US captain Lindsey Horan praised her team post-match for playing “beautiful football,” but it was the inability to score, the team’s toothlessness in attack, that meant the match had to be decided by penalties, which is ultimately a test of nerve and chance.
It was the cruelest of defeats. After the penalty shootout went to sudden death, the video assistant referee (VAR) determined that Lina Hurtig’s penalty had just crossed the line despite US goalkeeper Naeher initially appearing to save it; Naeher later told Fox Sports, “We just lost the World Cup by a millimeter.”
The truth is winning has become harder in women’s soccer and will become even harder. With the added weight of history on their shoulders, of trying to win a third consecutive world title – a feat that has not been achieved in the men’s or women’s game and is arguably close to impossible – the US faltered.
Lindsey Horan said the team played
A changing of the guard in women’s soccer but the US’ future can still be bright
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