For greater than a era, the United States ladies’s nationwide crew has performed out a few of its finest moments on the world’s greatest phases, in entrance of the most important crowds in ladies’s soccer. World Cup finals. Olympic gold medal video games. The crew has, through the years, received lots of these video games, a protracted line of days to recollect.
On Tuesday, although, on a cold evening within the depths of the New Zealand winter, the Americans nearly endured a day they might by no means have the ability to overlook.
The ending didn’t, ultimately, go utterly mistaken: The United States gamers held on desperately to protect a 0-0 tie with Portugal, a end result that delivered them, safely however scared out of their wits, to the knockout rounds of the Women’s World Cup.
That should do after a sport through which the United States didn’t create sufficient scoring probabilities, wasted those it did after which flirted with disaster as a Portuguese shot hit the put up and caromed out in second-half damage time.
The close to miss was maybe symbolic of an evening that certified as the identical, of a sport through which the United States, a four-time winner of the World Cup, got here inside inches of a shocking — and, for them, unprecedented — group-stage exit.
Far to the south in Dunedin, the Netherlands had received the groups’ group by thrashing Vietnam, 7-0, in a sport performed concurrently to the United States’ dance with catastrophe at Eden Park in Auckland. That lopsided end result was relegating the Americans to second place within the group even because the groups performed, however provided that they didn’t lose to Portugal. In the second half, survival had turn into the primary U.S. precedence.
The crew had created probabilities, however not almost sufficient and none of them notably harmful. As the sport went on, and the stakes rose, they saved coming, after which going: pictures despatched excessive, or large, or straight on the goalkeeper.
“This team gave everything,” U.S. ahead Alex Morgan stated. “We just didn’t put the ball in the net.”
An post-mortem of all that went mistaken for the United States can come later. Disconnected passes. Defensive failures. Substitutes despatched on too late, or in no way.
Morgan dismissed the end result as “unlucky,” which can be partially true. But the U.S. was additionally phenomenally fortunate when the Portugal substitute Ana Capeta slipped behind its again line early in second-half damage time and pinged a shot off the suitable put up.
By then the Americans had already shifted into security mode, inserting a fifth defender as they tried to protect what they may. The clock wound down, after which ran out, and the aid on the U.S. facet was palpable.
“The most important thing,” U.S. Coach Vlatko Andonovski stated, “is we got the job done.”
Afterward, he gathered his crew in a large circle on the sphere and spoke to the gamers briefly. But solely after the veteran defender Kelley O’Hara had been allowed to have her say first. She provided a short however impassioned deal with, punctuated by hand gestures and steely-eyed stares into her teammates’ eyes.
“I just told them, ‘Listen, guys, we did what we had to do,’” O’Hara stated. “‘This game’s done. Group stage is done. We advanced.’” She, like a number of of her different teammates, appeared to know that low bar won’t be adequate transferring ahead.
Others have been much less forgiving. On tv, the previous nationwide crew participant Carli Lloyd excoriated her former crew, and her former teammates, for their play, their preparations and their dedication, but in addition for what she noticed as their temerity in taking postgame selfies with followers and dancing after treading so near a humiliating exit. “The player of the match,” she said acidly, “was that post.”
Others famous the end result had not are available isolation, and was the most recent in a protracted string of just-good-enough scores over the previous few months. The Americans had struggled to impose themselves on groups like Ireland and Wales earlier than the World Cup; they didn’t dominate Vietnam of their opener; they usually have been outplayed for a half earlier than rallying for a tie towards the Netherlands. Against Portugal, they almost bottomed out.
Asked if he felt his crew had deserved to win at Eden Park, Portugal’s coach, Francisco Neto, replied unequivocally. “What do you think?” he requested rhetorically. “Of course, yes.”
“Unfortunately we didn’t win,” he added, “and we go home.”
Instead it’s the Americans who’re by to the spherical of 16 — more likely to a tough sport towards Sweden, one of many world’s finest groups and a title contender in its personal proper, on Sunday in Melbourne. After Tuesday evening, that certified as reward sufficient for the U.S. crew.
Its gamers could also be glad to depart Auckland behind for a couple of days after their slim escape. They might be thrilled in the event that they get an opportunity to return deeper within the event.
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