It’s early, but it looks probable that the final will end up being England v Japan.
The US is out. If you can’t score, it’s really hard to win.
Bad luck for the US that the Swedish keeper Musovic played the game of her life. But yes, nonetheless they must’ve decided that in normal time.
Man, my family is terrible about the WC. I wake up to a text that says “the US is out!” It was on at 5am here, give me a chance to watch a recording before you spoil.
They’ve been a poor offensive team this tournament so going out on pks after 0-0 is fitting. 11 shots on goal, but apparently they were only worth 1.3 xG where Sweden’s 1 was worth 0.8. Was the US mostly hoofing at net and Sweden blew a golden opportunity?
The US had a few decent opportunities but couldn’t get it past a solid Musovic. They were initially ahead in the penalty kicks at one moment too.
It seems that the differential between excellent and good soccer teams is becoming smaller in both mens and womens soccer. It is probably easy to be overconfident or believe the hype of others, and hard to stay resolute in the face of setbacks and unmet expectations. If a good team is playing as well as an excellent team over two halves, they have the momentum. (I am not always sufficiently familiar with womens soccer to be able to differentiate good from great, apart from previous results.)
Sweden’s been excellent for a long time. They’re 3 in both the FIFA and ELO rankings. The US should not have been overconfident at all. Especially when they had a fairly poor group stage showing.
Is there any indication that the US was overconfident coming into this match. I haven’t been following any off-pitch goings-on, so this is a legitimate question.
Certainly nothing on the field gave me any indication that they are not taking ANY team seriously. I’ve watched every minute of all their matches live. Though for the Vietnam game I was in a place with very poor internet.
The big thing before this match was then not taking shots, making too many passes in the opposition box. Today this was not the issue. The Sweden defense was just too good.
Wow, never seen a penalty kick that had to be decided by goal-line technology.
Glad that Rapinoe missed.
Amazing that U.S. dominated possession so thoroughly. Sweden’s weaknesses on offense are going to bite it against Japan.
I’ve been a long time fan of hers, but Rapinoe was just awful… her passing was bad, her set pieces were bad, and of course she missed a penalty.
US was the better team overall, but… not by enough. Swedish goalkeeper was lights out, and US missed three PKs, the final PK was in by pixels, and… that was that.
My daughter got us up at 445 this morning to watch it.
Obviously i was rooting for the Americans, but by the time the ot was done, i really didn’t want musovic to lose the match on a stupid pk shootout. She played an amazing 120 minutes, and deserved to move on to the next round.
Too many of the American players’ shots were directly at the keeper, which doesn’t make it all that challenging for musovic, but she still kept all 11 shots on goal out of the net. Kudos to her.
Now i root for the Dutch.
Perhaps not the only brain that works like this, but when I hear that phrase I often think of the final of the posts*, as the European Chanpionship final 1961 between Barcelona and Benfica became known in Spain, where it is claimed that had the posts been round instead of square at least one more goal for Barcelona would have gone in and they would have won their first European Championship (the predecesor of the Champion’s League) 31 years earlier.
So, if you don’t thank the posts you can at least curse them when they don’t go your way. It is what the football gods demand, and rightly so, as football is not a rational thing.
* Link in Spanish, of course.
How vile. They must be happy and proud of themselves today. Sad times we live in.
That was nicely put. Now they meet the Netherlands, could be the match that defines the winner of this tournament. Strangely the betting odds favour the Spanish, but I see it the other way around: if the NL win, they will be my favourite.
But I will weakly root for Spain.
Hopefully this isn’t too off topic but has a certain orange individual gloated about it online yet?
I haven’t heard much about it from him. I also have a few MAGA acquaintances, but I have not heard much about it from them either. I only heard on the SDMB that MAGA is cheering against them.
Losing teams occasionally grasp at straws, but the grip on “we lost due to the shape of the posts” seems particularly tenuous. (If only the posts were made of powerful fans that could propel the ball into the net…)
Still, at least soccer no longer has the “four step rule”, which always seemed silly.
Maybe I don’t care or want to know the answer. But are MAGAts critical of the US due to the popularity of soccer among immigrants, or because some players (allegedly) did not want to sing the anthem? Odd it is anathema to refuse to sing the anthem, but not for exanthems to sling refuse for ransom.
I’ve seen Facebook posts saying that the USWNT lost to a team that actually represents THEIR country. As well as a picture of Rapinoe and Smith with the caption Losers!!
I believe you.
Who’s saying that?
The US lost fair and square. They were the better team in a lot of ways, but couldn’t score goals, and that’s what matters. Honestly, after their tepid performances vs NED and POR, I wouldn’t have been surprised if Sweden had won 3-0 or something like that, sending the USA home in humiliating fashion. As it was, the USA came to play, generated far more scoring chances than they allowed, and it was a ridiculously near thing… I thought we had it when Sophia Smith was taking her PK for the win.
Hopefully we can rebound at the Olympics next year.
Don’t forget that some of them are (gasp!) gay!
This was a reply to post three above mine about a different game.
I think it’s because a lot of women soccer players care about, and are outspoken on, fighting for equality: racial, gender, lgbtq, etc. The whole maga crowd finds that to be woke and un-American, so they root against them.