The U.S. women’s national team un-encouraging run at the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup came to a disappointing ending Sunday in the Round of 16.
Sweden eliminated the Americans 5-4 in a penalty shootout after the teams played out a 0-0 scoreline through 120 minutes of action. Megan Rapinoe, Sophia Smith, and Kelley O’Hara all missed their spot kick opportunities before Sweden’s Lina Hurtig snuck the deciding penalty past Alyssa Naeher.
Zećira Mušović was Woman of the Match after making 11 saves for Sweden.
The USWNT came out on the front foot with Trinity Rodman having the first chance towards goal. Rodman snuck an effort towards the Sweden goal, but goalkeeper Zećira Mušović punched away the winger’s shot.
Lindsey Horan’s header in the 34th minute also looked dangerous, but the crossbar came to Sweden’s rescue to keep the score at 0-0.
Horan’s fizzing right-footed shot in the 53rd minute looked destined to give the USWNT a 1-0 lead, but Mušović palmed away the shot for a corner kick.
The Americans continued to pressure Mušović in the Sweden net up until the final minute of regular time. Alex Morgan’s header in the 93rd minute came close to stealing the victory for Vlatko Andonovski’s squad but Mušović played hero again for Sweden with a key save.
Mušović made three additional saves in extra time to keep Sweden alive as she denied Sophia Smith and Morgan on respective attempts. Her continued efforts forced the two teams to go to a shootout.
After two rounds of successful penalty kicks, the USWNT thought they took a slight advantage after Sweden’s Nathalie Bjorn’s shot skied over the crossbar. However, Megan Rapinoe proceeded to miss her shot in the fourth round as both teams stayed alive.
Naeher denied Rebecka Blomqvist’s low drive to give the USWNT its chance of advancement, but Smith missed her ensuing effort to keep Sweden in the match.
Kelley O’Hara struck the post in the seventh round, giving Sweden the opportunity to seal its quarterfinal spot. Lina Hurtig’s shot was originally denied by Naeher but the ball proceeded to roll into the back of the net, ending the Americans’ quest at a third-consecutive World Cup title.
Sweden will now meet Japan in the quarterfinals while the Americans prepare for their fall schedule.
“I’ve got all the confidence in the world in all 23 of us to step up and take PKs,” Naeher said postmatch to reporters. “Unfortunately we weren’t able to put them away tonight but it doesn’t take anything from Pinoe, Kelley and Soph. They are fantastic players and I feel for them, too. It’s tough — they’ve trained for it, they’ve prepared it. Unfortunately those things happen and my heart hurts for them.”
The USWNT returns to action in mid-September with a pair of home friendlies against South Africa.
Yamashita
6 Groenen fouls in 1st half, no cards, and 38 total for the match…and only one card.
to Rose Lavelle for her first foul of the game after entering in the 2nd half.
all this talk of changing of the guard, and Infantino the fixer STILL needed to make sure. LOL
the Swedes still needed Smith, with the game on her foot, to miss.
and the Dutch, without the ref’s help, lose again like the soft jelly spine soccer nation they are
maybe the Dutch should keep their traps shut and ust play, like they tell others to do…LOL
oh, c’mon, people, we went 1W 2D 0L in group at WWC after going 1W 1D 1L in OlyBall. advanced second both groups. in case anyone forgot got drubbed by sweden in the opener of that tournament. both tournaments advanced on panic inducing draws, not emphatic wins. went to PKs first round of knockouts both times. went out early both times. managed a face saving medal last time, which should not have been enough by WNT standards. this just draws a line under they have become very average. i even think it’s fairly obvious this could have been worse. no comeback goal on holland, or a few inches inside for portugal, and this is already over. to be fair, the MNT just tolerated similar results but we also have less success and lower standards.
i do think the quality has fallen off. i don’t know enough to know if the WNT have a selection issue — latent, unused talent that either sat or got cut — or if this is simply more like 2017 and the roster has hollowed out — you have ineffective kids meeting falling off older players. all i know is this is not karli lloyd scoring 4 goals, this is me watching morgan and horan hit balls in the keeper’s chest or wide. kind of like in the 2018 cycle for a rare period all we found was christian for a while. while the rest sucked or got old. i struggle to buy “tried hard and didn’t get the result” because it was so consistently meh and too close before to knocked out early. you usually use got a lucky result on a bad day when you usually have good days. that’s not how this or the olympics went. we didn’t sweep group then lose on kicks.
the coach is on the hook, to me, because i just felt like he made odd decisions. the 10 looks like a 9. the 9 looks like a wing. rapinoe is coming into an elimination game in extra time. 2/3 of his “kick subs” missed. those 3 kicks in a row when they could have won in spite of themselves. the lack of subbing. tactics. etc.
i do think they missed lavelle.
I once watched an EPL game where one team hit either the cross bar or a side post 5 times. The other team never had a shot on goal, but one of their passes across the box of the better team hit a defender’s arm away from his body and a PK was awarded. The team that totally dominated the game lost 1-0. Soccer can be cruel. The US was ranked #1`, Germany #2 and didn’t get out of their group. Sweden is ranked #3 and the US totally dominated the game, but one PK went over the line by 1 millimeter. It takes 25.4 millimeters to equal 1 inch. People are making much too much out of this loss. There was reason to be concerned after the group games, but they got their mojo back for this game and deserved to win. Sometimes in soccer the better team doesn’t win. This was one of those times.
It was the poor finishing against #32 Vietnam, unorganized first half against #7 Netherlands, and an uninspiring 0-0 draw with #21 Portugal that doomed this team. Made the difference of playing #3 or #54 in the round of 16. Perhaps in years past they could grown into the tournament but teams are too strong to not be playing your best throughout.
Totally disagree. There is every reason to be concerned about barely making it out of the group stage and then not advancing past the first round.
Defense was tight, allowing 1 goal in open play. Super. And that was without our captain and primary centerback.
However, only 4 goals scored in open play? The top 3 in the preferred 4-3-3 were disjointed with the exception of one pass in the first game that led to a score – by Smith off a little flick pass from Morgan. We did make chances in the Sweden game. But 1 game out of 4, is not acceptable for the Top Ranked Team in the world.
Coaching and subs: well, we excoriated the MNT coach. Why does the WNT coach get a pass? We failed to make the semi-finals for the first time ever. The coaching results are therefore not acceptable.
This should be examined in the same view as the losses in the Olympics by the mens’ basketball team in the past – or the German Mannschaft following the 2010 WC. This is not acceptable as bad luck should not be used to defend a poor showing by the US WNT.
The United States suffers from national hubris. Americans assume that we should be preeminent in almost everything all the time. Why did anyone think the US would win 3 WC’s in a row when they couldn’t do that when they were totally dominant? How many teams have won a total of 3 WC’s in history? I can point to all kinds of worse upsets in past men’s WC’s. Brazil was hammered at home by Germany. Then Germany gets knocked out early in two WC’s in a row. Italy didn’t even qualify for two consecutive cycles. Those 3 teams have won the most WC’s in men’s history. As for this game, Sweden has always given the US trouble. The US actually played better against Sweden this time than in the past. People need to grow up and be realistic.
Brazil getting badly beaten by Germany was a failure, Italy missing two consecutive WCs is a failure, Germany’s showing in the last 2WCs are failures, German women not getting out of the group this time is a failure. Just because other countries also fail to reach their goals doesn’t mean the US didn’t fail. They scored one goal in their final three matches. They scored one goal total from the run of play all tournament. Winning a third WC in a row would have been a huge accomplishment and fans who assumed it was a given were naive. However, bowing out in the first round of knockouts is a failure. It’s not a burn everything to the ground and boo all the players at every NWSL game, but it is an important data point for how to proceed and should signal it’s time to move onto new players and give them opportunities. It’s also probably time for USSF to look into if the NWSL is the proper place for our elite players to be playing. If the US had played as well in the group as they did against Sweden and scoring 2 or 3 more goals in that group stage people would mostly buy your premise that sometimes it isn’t your day, the best team doesn’t always win. This team struggled last fall against England, Germany, and Spain. They were unconvincing in spring and summer in victories over Wales and Ireland but very little changes in tactics or rosters were ever made. This result was predictable for people following along (I thought they’d lose to Japan in quarters before it started) but the staff seemed to think just a little grit and US athleticism would carry them through.
This tournament about to lose a lot of tv viewership. No Germany, Brazil, and now the US is out. To be honest now that the US is out I wont nor care to watch the rest of the tournament.
Which is too bad because there are some really fun players and teams out there and still some good stories. This WC was always going to test the US audience with the start times. In todays world it’s almost impossible to not hear about a game played at 2am and watch it after work. Shaw vs Caicedo, France vs it’s colony Morocco, contrasting style of Japan vs Sweden, Spain can Putellas play into her ballon d’or form before it’s over. All big stories, can Lauren James continue to out perform big brother Reece for England? Fox is just going to have to work a little harder but the stories are there, the time zones still stink though.
Oops I guess James was red carded for stomping on a Nigerian player, might not see her anymore.
Lack of clinical finishing coupled with Swedens GK standing on her head who made some very good saves.
All you do is pick yourselves up and work hard for 2027.
Talent won’t be an issue for 2027.
Hopefully the fan base was brought back down to reality a little bit. WC’s are hard to win, and the USWNT is not going to win every trophy, Olympic medal, or every game. That’s not reality.
But the USWNT is the Gold standard for women’s soccer and the mentality for these players should always be that they will win every tournament.
Bye Alex Morgan, Julie Ertz, Kelly O’Hara, and Meghan Rapinoe you gave the fans some brilliant moments to enjoy while playing for the USWNT.
Bye Andonovski.
Time to usher in more young talent. And find the right coach.
Glad they lost. Now girls wash your hair, get all of that purple out, and let’s move on to an American team we can all get behind and have some unity.
Thanks for the laugh! Of all the things to talk about, you lead with … hair dye?
Have a nice day.
Back to Truth Social troll.
Hardly anyone cares about this social justice garbage USWNT. Over 50% of Americans didn’t even know about the woman’s world cup. And the ones that did, about 70% wanted this polarizing garbage unpatriotic team to lose. So, maybe, you are the real troll. I feel sorry for the players who hate this woke crap but are too scared to speak out.
“70%” translates from Trump-speak to English as “a handful of anonymous internet trolls and click bait journalists”.
johnny99:
Yeah, I am sure that’s what it really was. LOL!!!
Tough way to go out, especially since they played their best game of the tourney. Gonna give the coach a little credit for the switch to double pivot, it definitely cleaned up the middle and helped the entire team look sharper. But he still didn’t use enough subs or fix the problems with the attack. Rodman and Smith are same player, speed to run behind defenses but poor end product and crosses, both dribble way too much and lose possession way too much. Should have only been one of them out there. Williams is not as dynamic as Rodman, but she was the only player that was looking to play the cross in earlier in the play. We don’t know what Thompson could have added because she never saw the field. Morgan and Rapinoe looked like shells of themselves. Feels like the manager was just hoping those two would magically recapture their former abilities, but that’s not how sports work. He should have picked the players who were in form and match sharp. Hate it for the ones that missed the penalties.
How much of the cause to shift to a double pivot occurred because Lovell was out with a yellow card suspension?
Why not make that shift against Portugal? We used up our luck in our final group game and got little help from the soccer gods against Sweden.
The US clearly out played Sweden. The held Sweden to just one shot on goal while the US had 11 and it was Sweden 9 shots total, the US 22. Possession was 58-42 for the US. PKs are a crap shoot but 3 misses doomed the US. In the end it was a failure to finish that did the US in.
The US had a tough route with The Netherlands, Sweden and Japan had they made it that far. It is abundantly clear that international women’s soccer is becoming more of a level playing field. Canada, Germany and Brazil did not make it out of the group stage.
Damn….this one’s tough. At the end of the day it doesn’t matter about your possession, dominance, passing accuracy or chances in front of goal……if you can’t put the ball in the back of the net….you don’t advance. Simple
And I don’t want to read too much into this loss, as that’s the reason we love the beautiful game, ANYTHING can happen at the World Cup…..but Rapinoe’s care free smile after she missed her penalty to me didn’t fit the gravity of what had just happened and shows a “we already go ours” mentality.
Oh well maybe that’s me over thinking…..
In re Rapinoe – we have a difference of opinion. I don’t think it was a care free smile. I think she smiled because she didn’t know what else to do. She is a battler – both on and off the field – regardless of whether you agree with her. I think the post-game statement that she said: this is a cruel or a sick joke – captures the superficiality of a smile.
That being said: she was not match fit for this tournament. Why not give Mewis or Thompson more playing time instead of Rapinoe running slowly up the line without any touch? I don’t understand – and will not accept – any explanation for no other subs in the last three games. You have 5 in a short tournament, you have the best talent pool in the world, use your subs.
A very predictable end result, and we avoid Japan on Friday. Where do we go from here?
1. No more equal pay talk
The US women will leave as the highest paid players in the tournament, including the eventual champions, by a wide margin
2. Figure out how to equalize revenue
Per the new contracts, the US men and US women equally split World Cup payouts. The US men brought in a bit over $13 million from Qatar. The US women will bring in less than $2 million. That means the US men on the WC roster will absorb hundreds of thousands on dollars in lost compensation. The USSF will need to think about how to rectify this situation.
3. Reset the US women’s program
It feels like Trinidad & Tobago all over again from 2018. The US women cannot compete with the same strategy, same pipeline, same talent pool. It will be painful to get the funding, but the USSF may not have any choice but to come up with a plan.
It looks like the world caught up to them. They looked like garbage pre-tournament and during the tournament. I wonder how much money they brought in with their quarterfinal exit and crap ratings? I just hope now they will get off of their soapbox and focus on their soccer.
haha…the end of “traitors” for no ratings World Cup…haha