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    How the U.S. Was Eliminated From the Women’s World Cup, Shot by Shot

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    The shootout was rapid-fire, but still agonizing for both Sweden, which moved to the World Cup quarterfinals, and the United States, which was eliminated.Under an ink black Australian sky above Melbourne Rectangular Stadium, the Women’s World Cup game between the United States and Sweden on Sunday went on and on and on. For 120 minutes, it went on as the teams tried unsuccessfully to score, with nearly 28,000 fans so nervous that they could only muster a simmer of cheers. Until penalty kicks turned up the volume and decided it all.That’s when the United States’ recent dominance in the World Cup fully ended, and the Americans were left stunned and devastated by their worst showing at the quadrennial tournament. They had arrived as the favorites after winning two consecutive championships, in 2015 and 2019. But on Sunday, in the round of 16, three missed penalty kicks and a razor-thin goal by Sweden changed their fate.Sophia Smith, who missed an opportunity to win for the United States, had to be consoled by her teammates as she sat on the field in tears. Kelley O’Hara, in her fourth World Cup, stormed by reporters and stared straight ahead in silence after the game, moments after her penalty shot hit the right post and bounced away.And Megan Rapinoe, the outspoken and accomplished U.S. forward who had been relegated to a reserve at this World Cup, grew teary when discussing that her international career would end with her missing a penalty kick, calling it “a sick joke.” Just a week ago, Rapinoe was asked what the team’s legacy would be if it failed to win the world title yet again. She answered, “I haven’t thought about that.”Now she won’t forget it. Sweden won the shootout, 5-4, to eliminate the United States.Alex Morgan, the star U.S. forward, called it “a bad dream.”“I’m really disappointed with myself, and I wish I could have provided more with this team,” said Morgan, who was on the bench for the shootouts because she had been replaced by Rapinoe earlier. She didn’t score during the entire tournament.Julie Ertz, who rushed back to the team after having a baby a year ago, said it was sweet to see her son in the stands after the match. “But it still hurts to lose a game like that,” she said. She walked off, wiping the wet, smeared mascara from under her eyes.It all came apart for the United States in a flurry of 14 kicks. Here’s how they unfolded, emotions included:Players from the United States, left, and Sweden reacting and cheering during the shootout.Asanka Brendon Ratnayake/ReutersAndi Sullivan, the midfielder, is up first to face Sweden’s goalkeeper, Zecira Musovic, with her teammates lined up behind her, many arm in arm. She walks over to the spot with the death stare of a gunslinger, then nails the shot into the lower left of the goal. Sullivan spins back toward her teammates and pumps a fist. The crowd finally comes alive and chants: “U-S-A! U-S-A!” U.S. 1, Sweden 0.Andi Sullivan got the United States off to a good start, by nailing a shot into the lower left of the goal.Robert Cianflone/Getty ImagesFridolina Rolfo, a 5-foot-10 forward who has been on the national team for 10 years, is up first for Sweden against goalkeeper Alyssa Naeher about a month after winning the Champions League with Barcelona. She sends the ball into the right side of the net, her blond ponytail swinging behind her. She flexes her arms and opens her mouth wide to shout in celebration, and the Swedish fans, many clad in bright yellow and sitting right behind the goal, explode into cheers. U.S. 1, Sweden 1.One of the U.S. co-captains, Lindsey Horan, has a familiar, ferocious “don’t mess with me” look on her face. It’s the look she had just before she scored the equalizer in the 1-1 tie versus the Netherlands in the group stage. It’s much tougher than the softer approach she took for much of last week with her teammates, as she encouraged the 14 World Cup rookies, one by one, to play with more confidence. The Swedish fans are booing her, competing with the U.S. cheers. But Horan is steely and delivers the ball precisely to the left side, rocketing it into the net. U.S. 2, Sweden 1.Lindsey Horan scored.Quinn Rooney/Getty ImagesElin Rubensson celebrated scoring with Magdalena Eriksson.Hannah Mckay/ReutersElin Rubensson, a midfielder who returned to soccer just two months after having a baby in 2020, evidently decides that Horan picked a wonderful place to put the ball into the net. So she sends the ball there, too — and Naeher can’t get to it. U.S. 2, Sweden 2.Up next is Kristie Mewis, whose little sister, Sam, won the World Cup title with the United States in 2019. The elder Mewis exhales hard before she shoots with her left foot and sends the ball into the right side of the goal. The stadium starts to rumble. U.S. 3, Sweden 2.Kristie Mewis celebrated her goal with her teammates.William West/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesNathalie Bjorn missed.Robert Cianflone/Getty ImagesThe fans are starting to think this might never end. Nathalie Bjorn, the right back for Sweden, tries to shoot into the left corner, but the ball has other ideas. It goes flying over the goal and the Sweden fans sigh in unison. She buries her face in her hands. The momentum has changed. Peter Gerhardsson, Sweden’s coach, says after the game: “You’re just waiting. You want it to be over, and you want it to go your way.” U.S. 3, Sweden 2.The U.S. fans go wild when Megan Rapinoe walks up. She had come in for Morgan as a substitute and was sure the ball would go straight into the back of the net, just as it had so many times before, including in the final of the 2019 World Cup. This is her final World Cup, her fourth one, after she announced in July that she would retire this year. But now, her shot isn’t even close.She sends the ball flying over the goal. On the way back to her team, she smiles because she just can’t believe it. This is how an international career ends? She thinks she last missed a penalty shot maybe in 2018.“That’s some dark humor, me missing,” she says after the game. “I feel like I joke too often, always in the wrong places and inappropriately, so maybe this is ha-ha at the end.” U.S. 3, Sweden 2.Megan Rapinoe missed.William West/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesAlyssa Naeher saved Rebecka Blomqvist’s shot.James Ross/EPA, via ShutterstockSweden’s Rebecka Blomqvist shoots and Naeher makes a superhero-like dive to knock the shot down. U.S. 3, Sweden 2.The United States scored only four goals at this World Cup, and forward Sophia Smith scored half of them. She can win it for the U.S. team, and takes her time setting up. When she connects with the ball, it soars over the right side of the post. The win was there for the taking, and she couldn’t grab it. She buries her face in her black-gloved hands. She will not be the star today. Horan tells her later: “The best players in the world miss.” Smith explains to reporters later: “But you’ve got to remember, this is part of football. You get back up and it’s going to hurt. It’s going to hurt for forever.” U.S. 3, Sweden 2.Sophia Smith, right, was consoled by Lindsey Horan.Quinn Rooney/Getty ImagesHanna Bennison scored.William West/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesHanna Bennison, a substitute for Sweden, has a chance to save her team from what had looked like disaster. She scores, sending her team into a frenzy. Gerhardsson says later: “Accept that you are nervous, so that being nervous doesn’t make you more nervous.” U.S. 3, Sweden 3.There’s a rumble among U.S. fans when they see who is taking the next shot: It’s Alyssa Naeher, the goalkeeper. She has flipped the switch in her head and is now taking on Musovic, her counterpart. Her shot goes smack into the middle of the goal after Musovic guesses wrong. U.S. 4, Sweden 3.Alyssa Naeher, who is also the U.S. goalkeeper, took one of the penalties and scored.Quinn Rooney/Getty ImagesSweden celebrated Magdalena Eriksson’s penalty.Robert Cianflone/Getty ImagesMagdalena Eriksson, a seasoned center back, needs to score to keep Sweden alive. And she delivers to the upper right corner. Sweden 4, U.S. 4.It’s up to Kelley O’Hara, in her fourth World Cup. She sprints to the spot. She wants to win this game and this tournament and has rallied her team to have confidence that it will do both. But her shot bounces off the right post and away along the baseline.Kelley O’Hara missed.Asanka Brendon Ratnayake/ReutersSweden fans celebrated.William West/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesSweden’s fans start to party, waving their blue-and-yellow flags and dancing. Naeher says she feels terrible for her teammates who missed: “They’ve trained for it. They’ve prepared for it. And, you know, unfortunately, those things happen. My heart hurts for them.” Sweden 4, U.S. 4.Naeher conceding the winning goal by Lina Hurtig. Naeher appeared to have saved it, but the ball crossed the goal line by the slimmest of margins.William West/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesLina Hurtig waited for a decision by the referee, Stéphanie Frappart.Hamish Blair/Associated PressSweden players celebrate.William West/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesLina Hurtig, the forward who scored when Sweden humbled the United States at the Tokyo Olympics, can win it. She shoots toward the left side of the goal. Naeher leaps for it, hitting it once with both hands to make it fly upward. The ball goes up, and Naeher hits it again with her right arm while on the ground, stretched backward, to keep it out of the goal.Did it go in, after all? Naeher insists she saved it. Hurtig raises her arms, and shadows the referee, Stéphanie Frappart, to make her case for a goal. The play is reviewed with cameras and tracking technology.Then Frappart waves her arms: The game is over; it is ruled a goal. Hurtig takes off toward her teammates and the Swedish players run onto the field to celebrate.The ball, indeed, had crossed entirely into the goal, according to the replay system. By the looks of it, the margin may be a millimeter. “I thought I had it. Unfortunately it must have just slipped in. But that’s tough. Ugh, we just lost the World Cup. It’s heartbreak,” Naeher says. Sweden 5, U.S. 4.Sweden’s players looking at a phone displaying the goal line technology that led to the decision on the final penalty. Alex Pantling/FIFA, via Getty Images More

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      Referee Stéphanie Frappart Will Lead First All-Woman Team at World Cup

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      Some 92 years after the first World Cup game was held in Uruguay, Stéphanie Frappart is set to become the first woman to be the lead referee during a men’s match at the tournament. Frappart, a French referee, has been appointed to a refereeing crew of all women during a decisive group stage game between Costa Rica and Germany on Thursday.Frappart, 38, will lead alongside Neuza Back of Brazil and Mexico’s Karen Diaz Medina. It is a barrier-breaking moment which both coaches welcomed and suggested was overdue.“I trust her 100 percent,” Germany’s manager, Hansi Flick, said of Frappart’s appointment. “I think she deserves to be here due to her performance and achievements.”Costa Rica’s manager, Luis Fernando Suárez, said the same during his prematch news conference.“I am a great admirer of everything women have conquered,” he said. “And I like that they want to keep conquering things. And this is another step forward, especially in this sport, which is a very macho.”Frappart told French reporters she considered her selection as lead referee “a surprise.” Still, she has had a stellar career for nearly two decades. A native of Le Plessis-Bouchard, a remote town in the far north of the Paris region, she officiated her first game in 2003 at age 19 — a women’s match between the Henin-Beaumont F.C. and La Roche-sur-Yon. Within two decades, she was overseeing a Women’s World Cup final.Since then, she climbed the ladder like no woman before her, racking up accolades. In 2014, she became the first woman to be lead referee during a men’s Ligue 2 game, in France’s second division. She then refereed games in men’s Ligue 1, during international friendlies and in the Champions League.On Aug. 14, 2019, Frappart also became the first woman to referee the UEFA Super Cup between Chelsea and Liverpool. After the game, Jürgen Klopp, the Liverpool coach, praised her performance.“If we would have played like they whistled, then we would have won, 6-0,” he said.Frappart’s also refereed the Women’s World Cup final in 2019, when the United States beat the Netherlands to cap a tournament that was a major public forum for the U.S. team’s fight for equal pay and treatment from its national federation.Pierluigi Collina, the chairman of the FIFA referee committee who is known for being tough on colleagues, has high praise for Frappart. “I hope that there will be more Frapparts in the future and that this will no longer constitute an oddity or news story,” Collina told the Italian press in 2021. At the Globe Soccer Awards in 2019, Frappart won an award as best referee and Collina handed her the trophy.Frappart told French reporters that she was “aware” that her presence in the tournament is “going to inspire.” But she would prefer to let her whistle do the talking.“I don’t want to be judged differently because of my gender but because of my refereeing skills,” she said.In Qatar, Stephanie Frappart has already officiated as fourth referee for two matches during the group phase, when Mexico faced Poland and Portugal played Ghana. More

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      FIFA Picks First Women Referees for Men’s World Cup

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      It is the first time that women, three referees and three assistant referees, were selected to officiate games at the top men’s soccer tournament, which will be held in Qatar this year.The Qatar World Cup was always going to be full of firsts: the first time it will be played in the Middle East; the first time it will be played in November and December. Now, it may also be the first men’s World Cup tournament in which a game is refereed by a woman.FIFA on Thursday named three women among the 36 referees chosen to officiate at the event and three more in the group of assistants that will run the line at the monthlong tournament. The most likely candidate among the three to get a starring role is Stéphanie Frappart of France, who has broken a number of barriers in European soccer.Frappart, who made the list alongside female referees from Rwanda and Japan, has a stellar reputation in European soccer as the first woman to referee men in the Champions League, France’s top division and World Cup qualification games. This month, she refereed the final of the men’s French Cup.Frappart was also chosen to join the officiating teams at last summer’s European Championship, but her role was limited to that of fourth official, a function on the sideline between the benches of the opposing teams.In announcing its refereeing choices, FIFA may now look to go one step further. Joining Frappart in the refereeing group are Salima Mukansanga from Rwanda and Yoshimi Yamashita from Japan. They and the other World Cup-bound officials will attend seminars in preparation for the 32-team event.Salima Mukansanga and all of the other referees selected for the pool of officials at the World Cup will be put through a rigorous physical training program.Footografiia/EPA, via Shutterstock“This concludes a long process that began several years ago with the deployment of female referees at FIFA men’s junior and senior tournaments,” said Pierluigi Collina, the chairman of the FIFA referees committee. “In this way, we clearly emphasize that it is quality that counts for us and not gender.”Read More on the World CupAmbitious Goals: FIFA has given up on a plan to hold the World Cup every two years. But its president’s plans for the future are bold.Golden Sunset: This year’s World Cup will likely be the last for stars like Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo — and a profound watershed for soccer.Senegalese Pride: Aliou Cissé, one of the best soccer coaches in Africa, has given Senegal a new sense of patriotism. Next up: the World Cup.A Controversy: A dispute over a player’s eligibility could alter the qualifying results in South America, with Chile asking for forfeits and Ecuador’s spot in Qatar.North American women have also been selected to participate in the tournament as assistant referees. Kathryn Nesbitt, a regular in Major League Soccer, is joined by Karen Díaz Medina of Mexico. Neuza Back from Brazil is also included.For FIFA, the push to include more women on and off the field has become increasingly urgent amid greater scrutiny of how it manages the sport and a growing global interest in women’s soccer. More money than ever has been invested in developing players and match officials. That, Collina said, should help make the sight, and inclusion, of female referees less of a talking point than it remains today.“I would hope that in the future, the selection of elite women’s match officials for important men’s competitions will be perceived as something normal and no longer as sensational,” he said. “They deserve to be at the FIFA World Cup because they constantly perform at a really high level, and that’s the important factor for us.”Still, the environment and focus on female officials can be exacting. Frappart faced abusive messages on social media before and after she officiated the French Cup game, which was decided after a penalty call.Frappart said before that game that she stayed away from social media and rarely read the press. “Personally, I am focused on what happens on the pitch and don’t pay attention to controversies or discussions about my performances,” she said.That the opportunity for the first female officials to take part in a World Cup is taking place in a conservative Gulf state like Qatar adds to the intrigue. Some establishments and restaurants in the tiny emirate are separated, with groups of men not allowed to enter areas designated for women or families. Stadiums, though, will be open, without such restrictions.Yoshimi Yamashita and the other female officials will be working in an emirate in which some establishments limit contact between men and women.Soe Zeya Tun/ReutersFIFA has become increasingly innovative when it comes to officiating its multibillion-dollar tournament. The last two editions of the tournament featured goal line technology. At the last one, in Russia, FIFA introduced video assistant refereeing, largely without affecting the flow of the game.VAR was also used at the last Women’s World Cup, in France, in 2019, but its use, largely because of running costs, is not yet universal in the sport. For that reason, FIFA said the teams at the controls are mainly drawn from Europe and South America.Choosing referees for the tournament was made harder by the pandemic, and that is also, in part, why FIFA made its announcements earlier than usual. “We want to work even harder with all those who have been appointed for the FIFA World Cup, monitoring them in the next months,” said Collina, a former World Cup final referee. “The message is clear: Don’t rest on your laurels, keep working hard, and prepare yourselves very seriously for the World Cup.”FIFA is also keen to ensure its officials are able to keep up with players who are fitter than ever. For that, the organization said it would provide each official with a plan to follow to arrive in Qatar in peak form. “Each match official will be carefully monitored in the next months with a final assessment on technical, physical and medical aspects to be made shortly before the World Cup,” Massimo Busacca, FIFA’s director of refereeing, said.But for all the work, all the focus, a referee’s fate could be defined by one bad call.“We can’t eliminate all mistakes, but we will do everything we can to reduce them,” Busacca said. More