When every World Cup tournament you don't win is a disaster and at least reaching the final is the norm, imagine what it means to crash out in the first knockout round...that is exactly what the United States are facing right now following their shock last 16 exit.
After 120 minutes of goal-less action in Melbourne, Sweden's Lina Hurtig's penalty was declared to have crossed the line - with help from a VAR review. It was the 14th attempt in the shootout and directly followed Kelley O'Hara's failure to convert. Rebecka Blomqvist and Nathalie Bjorn had each already missed for Sweden, as did Megan Rapinoe and Sophia Smith for the Americans.
There was a moment of uncertainty when it wasn't clear if Alyssa Naeher, having made an initial save to pushed the ball up from Hurtig's shot, had reacted quick enough to stop it from dropping over the goal line. The assistant referee didn't think it had crossed, but Stephanie Frappart then confirmed it had, just, cuing the jubilant Swedish celebrations.
The American players were broken. For Rapinoe, retiring at the end of the year, it was definitely her last kick of the ball in a World Cup match. Alex Morgan, 34, almost certainly looks like she won't be back either. Naeher is already 35, so is O'Hara, while Crystal Dunn and Julie Ertz are both 31.
It will remain a 'what if' moment for the United States. What if they had captain Becky Sauerbrunn, ruled with out with a foot injury in April? What if they had Catarina Macario, Mallory Swanson, Sam Mewis or two-time World Cup winner Christen Press?
What is certain is that this is a moment in history.
The United States are an international powerhouse of women's football and have been for decades. Their historic World Cup record is so good that they never failed to at least reach the semi-finals across eight tournaments from 1991 to 2019. They had never finished lower than third place, had reached five finals - including each of the last three, and were record four-time champions.
And yet, the class of 2023 has fallen spectacularly short of those previous standards.
It could have been over much sooner as well. Despite a reasonable start with a 3-0 win over Vietnam, the USA looked laboured throughout the group stage and criticisms have been thrown at coach Vlatko Andonovski about his team selection and in-game management since the tournament began. They were subsequently pegged back by the Netherlands in a do-over of the 2019 final, before failing to break down Portugal in a 0-0 draw that cost them top spot in the group and funnelled them into a last 16 tie with Sweden rather than South Africa.
Had Portugal's Ana Capeta scored in stoppage time instead of seeing her shot rebound off the post, the Americans would have been out there and then, joining the likes of Germany, Canada and Brazil in a surprise failure to even make it through the group stage.
The transition period had already started. But with a number of impending retirements now to come in the following months and years before 2027, serious questions are about to be asked about the direction of the United States and whether the rest of the world has finally caught up.
Comments