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      Is Japan the Best Team Left in the World Cup?

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      Champions in 2011, the team returned to the final in the next tournament and then fell behind the world’s best teams. It’s back, and playing like a champion.After the United States and seven European teams reached the quarterfinals of the Women’s World Cup four years ago, it was widely assumed that soccer’s global power base would remain stalled like a weather front in those regions four years later.But this is a tournament of surprise, upended expectation and cracks in the foundation of women’s soccer tradition. The United States and Germany, ranked Nos. 1 and 2 in the world, with six world championships between them, were sent home early and stunned.Five European teams remain, but it is Japan that might be the most impressive contender, a sagging power suddenly revived and the only team left standing to have won a World Cup.With unity of movement, a mostly unsolvable defense and tactical flexibility, Nadeshiko, as the team is known, has delivered 14 goals and conceded only one in four matches ahead of Friday’s meeting with Sweden in the quarterfinals in Auckland, New Zealand. Hinata Miyazawa has been a revelation at midfield, scoring five goals in this World Cup — the most of any player — after scoring only four times in 22 previous appearances.Hinata Miyazawa, left, during team practice in Auckland.Abbie Parr/Associated PressHaving wilted after winning the 2011 World Cup in a penalty kick shootout against the United States, Japan has bloomed anew with versatility to play the possession style of short passes known as tiki-taka or to launch searing counterattacks. After a blistering 4-0 loss to Japan during group play, Spain Coach Jorge Vilda said that his team’s defeat had been psychic as well as numerical. “Mentally, of course,” Vilda said, “this has done some damage.”After Japan defeated Norway by 3-1 in the round of 16, Caroline Graham Hansen, the Norwegian star who plays for the Champions League winner Barcelona, said that Japan showed why it might be the best team in the tournament.“They’re so disciplined and very structured in the way they play offense and defense,” Hansen said.Friday’s quarterfinal might play out as an engaging challenge of physicality versus technique. Sweden has scored four of its nine goals on corner kicks, a total that nearly grew last Sunday as it packed the six-yard box against the United States like a crowded elevator.But the Swedes could not manage a goal in 90 minutes of regulation and 30 minutes of overtime before subduing the Americans, finally and microscopically, on penalty kicks. Only the brilliant anticipation and reaction of goalkeeper Zecira Musovic kept the outcome from being reversed. A number of Sweden’s players appeared near exhaustion, particularly left back Jonna Andersson, who was beaten down the flank repeatedly by the speed of Trinity Rodman and Lynn Williams.Not until kickoff on Friday will it become evident whether Andersson and her teammates have had sufficient time to recover to face a relentless Japanese team that has been much more incisive in each of its matches than the United States was in any of its games.“They don’t play as directly as the U.S., so it’s going to be a different kind of game,” said Sweden’s coach, Peter Gerhardsson. “It’ll be more about possession.”Sweden may set its defense low, trying to absorb and dissipate Japan’s attack; its goal, Gerhardsson said, is normally to try to win the ball back after its opponent makes four or five passes.“With Japan, maybe it’s 10 to 15 passes, but we still want to win the ball,” he said. “And, then, transition is going to be important.”Japan entered this World Cup ranked 11th by FIFA, a sign of how far its fortunes had slid after winning the World Cup and returning to the final in 2015. Its inspiring 2011 victory came four months after an earthquake and tsunami had devastated the country’s northeast coast, killing more than 15,000 people and displacing thousands more.Japan’s players celebrate with the trophy after they won the World Cup in 2011.Patrik Stollarz/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesEven in defeat that year, the American forward Megan Rapinoe said recently, she considered Japan’s victory “one of the greatest stories in all of sports.”But that success began to ebb. When the Japanese team traveled to the 2012 London Olympics, it had to fly coach, while its men’s team, mostly under-23 players, flew business class on the same jet. The women won a silver medal, while the men finished fourth.In the final of the 2015 World Cup, Japan was routed, 5-2, by the United States, largely on the predatory audacity of Carli Lloyd, who scored three goals in the first 16 minutes, including a shot launched from midfield. When Japan failed to qualify for the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics the following summer, a makeover began, with the aim of overhauling the senior team but also of increasing the participation of female soccer coaches, referees and players, to create a larger talent pool from which to draw. The stated goal was to register 300,000 female players — up from 50,500 at the time — by 2030.Japan also hired the first female coach for its women’s national team: Asako Takakura, who had been a pioneering player. In an interview with The New York Times months before the 2019 World Cup, she predicted that Japan would win the tournament. She wanted her players to express their individualism, she said, instead of simply prizing the collectivity of the group, which had been a tradition on some previous teams.Instead of lifting the trophy, though, Japan scored only three goals in four matches and exited quickly and meekly. Two years later, Japan’s gold-medal dream at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics ended when it was eliminated by Sweden in the quarterfinals. Takakura was replaced by Futoshi Ikeda, who coached Japan to the 2018 under-20 Women’s World Cup title.As the current World Cup began, many remained skeptical about Japan’s chances, including Takakura, who told Agence France-Presse that Japan was “left behind by the sudden strides that the rest of the world were making” in terms of resources poured into women’s soccer. Not until 2021, for instance, did Japan’s women’s league become fully professional.Shinobu Ohno, who was a member of the 2011 championship team, told the French news agency that Japan’s national team had become sclerotic, unable to adapt to teams that were physically stronger and more tactically adept. But pretournament doubt has since been replaced by ascendant optimism.Japan supporters celebrating after their team’s win against Norway.Marty Melville/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesIkeda has constructed a team built on agility, mobility, cohesion and a liberating joyfulness. Nine of Japan’s 23 players are attached to clubs in top women’s leagues in the United States, England, Italy and Sweden, and that has helped develop the confidence, fearlessness and tactical versatility evident in the World Cup.“We’re ready to fight against anyone,” said Saki Kumagai, Japan’s captain and the only player remaining on the roster from the 2011 World Cup. More

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      Nigeria’s Players Have Enlisted Help to Ensure They Get Paid

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      The members of Nigeria’s Women’s World Cup team announced Tuesday that they had restarted a long-running battle with their country’s soccer federation over missing paychecks and bonuses. Some of the overdue pay claims, the team said, go back more than two years.To press their claims, the players have enlisted the help of soccer’s global players union, FIFPro.The bitter fight over money had shadowed Nigeria’s preparations for the World Cup, and reportedly led the team to discuss taking the unprecedented step of boycotting its opening game in Australia. Instead, the players set aside their grievances long enough to advance to the round of 16, where they were eliminated by England in a penalty kick shootout on Monday.On Tuesday, the team and the players issued a joint statement in which they said they would work together to press the Nigeria Football Federation “concerning bonus payments, camp allowances and expenses, some of which date back to 2021.”“During the World Cup, the players expressed the desire to remain focused on their performance without making public statements or facing other distractions,” the statement said. “However, the Super Falcons believe that it is now time for the Nigeria Football Federation to honor their commitments and pay the outstanding amounts.”Before the tournament, FIFPro had given its blessing to a new structure that guaranteed at least $30,000 in prize money to each player in the tournament, with even more due to players on teams that advanced out of the group stage. For a team like Nigeria, which was eliminated in the round of 16, that should mean payments of at least $60,000 per player.That money will be paid to national federations, though, rather than directly to players, according to FIFA, world soccer’s global governing body and the organizer of the World Cup. On the eve of the tournament, FIFA’s president, Gianni Infantino, declined to guarantee that the players would get the bonus payments created for them.“We are an association of associations,” said FIFA’s president, Gianni Infantino. “So any payments we do will be through the associations.”The Nigerian players, and their coach, the American Randy Waldrum, have implied that could be a problem. Waldrum told a podcast before the World Cup that the Nigerian federation was still months behind on payments of his own salary to coach the team, and he also said the federation had not delivered hundreds of thousands of dollars provided by FIFA to Nigerian officials to pay for the team’s pre-World Cup preparations.“Up until about three weeks ago, I had been owed about 14 months’ salary,” Waldrum said in July. “And then they paid seven months’ salary. We still have players that haven’t been paid since two years ago, when we played the summer series in the U.S.A. It’s a travesty.”Now the players are seeking not only that money, but much more.“The team is extremely frustrated that they have had to pursue the Nigeria Football Federation for these payments before and during the tournament and may have to continue doing so afterward,” the team’s statement with FIFPro said. “It is regrettable that players needed to challenge their own federation at such an important time in their careers.” More

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      A Tiny Gap Reveals a Yawning One for the U.S. Women’s Team

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      The idea that the United States was eliminated from the Women’s World Cup by a millimeter is an illusion. Denying that will only guarantee more failures.Even in the highest-resolution image, examined up close, there was not so much as a discernible sliver of daylight. The margin by which the United States was eliminated from the Women’s World Cup was so microscopic that it cannot be expressed in a unit of measurement the country fully recognizes.A millimeter, a single millimeter, is no more than 0.04 inches, yet even that most slender gap can serve as the gossamer border between two realities. Such is the unspoken truth of sports, of course: The difference between triumph and disaster, delight and dismay, can be far thinner than we choose to pretend.For the United States, there is some comfort in that. “It is tough to have your World Cup end by a millimeter,” Alyssa Naeher, the U.S. goalkeeper, said after her team’s loss to Sweden in a penalty shootout Sunday. It does not take an especially vivid imagination to envision how the outcome might have been different.Had Naeher intercepted Lina Hurtig’s shot at a slightly different angle, maybe the spin would have carried the ball to safety. Had Hurtig struck her penalty more softly, or more firmly, maybe Naeher would have saved it more decisively. Granted a reprieve, maybe the United States would have gone on to win that game in the round of 16, the tournament, the crown. Maybe, maybe, maybe.Alyssa Naeher conceding Lina Hurtig’s penalty kick.William West/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThat solace, though, is an illusion, and so too is the idea that the United States was eliminated by a millimeter. It was not one penalty that ended its hopes of a third straight title and, in the process, drew the veil over a whole golden, glorious generation, no matter how tempting it might be to believe. This is another unspoken truth of sports: Moments do not exist in isolation.There is a certain irony in the fact that it was against Sweden that the United States, so limp and insipid earlier in the tournament, started to show signs of life. Naomi Girma was imperious. Lindsey Horan was dynamic. Sophia Smith, Trinity Rodman and Lynn Williams were all, at various points, electric. There were glimpses, in Melbourne, Australia, of what this team might one day be.But that should not disguise the shortcomings of what came before. The United States was only in position to be knocked out by Sweden because it had failed to beat both the Netherlands and — more troubling — Portugal in the group stage.The United States, the two-time reigning champion and pretournament favorite and great superpower of women’s soccer, won only one game in Australia and New Zealand, and that was against Vietnam. It was not even supposed to be in Melbourne. It was meant to be in Sydney, playing the Group G runner-up, at a time that had been specially arranged so that it was not in the middle of the long American night or early in the morning.Trinity Rodman in the match against Sweden.Scott Barbour/Associated PressThe spin of the ball, the single millimeter, was the culmination of a succession of failures, ones that can most immediately be traced to the last two weeks, but the roots of which stretch back not just months but years. To dismiss this disappointment as merely a cruel twist of fate is to risk failing to learn from those failures, making them endemic.It is not enough, for example, to point the finger of blame at the coach, Vlatko Andonovski. He will, most likely, be removed from his position before his contract expires at the end of the year, and it is hard to make a case for his retention. This is the worst performance an American team has mustered at a World Cup. A price has to be paid.But Andonovski is not the cause of the malaise. There are structural, systemic issues that have to be addressed, too. There are issues with the way the United States produces players, a fragmented system is reliant on pay-to-play youth teams in disparate leagues, unattached to elite adult teams, feeding into the college system.That was fine when the United States effectively had a monopoly on professionalized women’s soccer, before the major men’s teams of Europe and South America decided — and let’s not cast them as the good guys here, given how long it took — that maybe women might enjoy the chance to play the sport.In an ecosystem in which the intellectual and financial weight of global soccer can be deployed to hothouse talented young players, the American approach is not so much lacking as a guarantee of failure. So, too, is the continued emphasis on physicality, rather than cunning, that such a system favors. It is not a coincidence that the United States was eliminated from the tournament when its one player of genuine invention, Rose Lavelle, was absent. Lavelle is the one player, after all, that her country simply cannot replace.Lindsey Horan of Lyon, left, with Lauren James of Chelsea in a Champions League match.Mike Hewitt/Getty ImagesNurturing talent, though, is just the first problem. It is significant that Horan is the only member of Andonovski’s squad currently playing in Europe. Others, including Megan Rapinoe and Alex Morgan, have spent time there, but most have been drawn back to play in the surging National Women’s Soccer League.That is, in many ways, good. A healthy domestic league is not only desirable but a crucial ingredient in success. But it also hints at a creeping isolationism, a disconnection from Europe’s major leagues, which are now emerging as the game’s fiscal engine and its intellectual crucible, too.The United States needs players competing against their rivals and peers in the Champions League, not only as a finishing school but as a way to better understand their relative strength. Smith, for example, is lavishly gifted, but is she more so than Lauren James of England, Aitana Bonmatí of Spain or Linda Caicedo of Colombia? Answering that question is crucial for understanding how to set expectations.Most immediately, though, what is required is a generational shift. It is, as Rapinoe herself put it, a “sick joke” that her last act at a World Cup will be missing a penalty. She has already confirmed she will retire at the end of the N.W.S.L. season. There are others, though, who may have to be ushered into the autumn of their careers rather less willingly.That is never a pain-free process, and it will be all the more agonizing because of all this team has achieved. Naeher, Morgan, Julie Ertz, Kelley O’Hara and Crystal Dunn — as well as the absent Becky Sauerbrunn — have all enjoyed distinguished, glittering careers, the final, glorious ambassadors of a generation that won two World Cups.The U.S. team could look very different at next year’s Paris Olympics.Quinn Rooney/Getty ImagesMoving on would always be difficult in a purely sporting sense. It is made all the more charged, though, because of what this team means in a cultural one. They are, rightly, revered as players but they are also admired because of the causes — equal pay, equal rights, the struggle against racism and misogyny and homophobia — that they have willingly adopted.They mean something to people, to fans, in a way that other athletes do not. The adoration, the loyalty, the fervor they have inspired has more in common with political or cultural idols than it does with humdrum sports fandom.As Rapinoe has always acknowledged, though, the activism has to flow downstream from the sport. Winning, she said, is necessary because it is the precondition for people wanting to hear what you have to say. Victory has always been what allowed the U.S. players to speak their minds and to make their stands to the most people.It follows, then, that when they are no longer almost a guarantee of winning — when they might, in some senses, make success less likely — then they cannot be protected for what they represent, for what they mean, rather than what they do. There comes a point when they have to be judged as athletes, not activists, and that means knowing when to say goodbye.None of that would have been changed had Naeher managed to keep out Hurtig’s penalty, had the ball spun just out, had that microscopic difference worked in the Americans’ favor. This United States team was always coming to the end of its road. No matter where the ball landed, there was never any other reality than the one the United States finds itself in now, at the end of one era and the start of another. More

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      England Through to Quarterfinals of World Cup Despite Red Card for Lauren James

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      England is through to the quarterfinals of the World Cup and that will be all that matters for now. Four of its penalty kicks went in and two of Nigeria’s did not, and on a night when not much went according to plan, that was enough. The other questions — important questions — can wait for a day.After a brief gasp when Georgia Stanway opened the penalty kick shootout by missing the first attempt, England’s victory was delivered in short order: Beth England, Rachel Daly, Alex Greenwood and Chloe Kelly hammered home their efforts in quick succession and Nigeria, which missed two of its four, was beaten.The questions, though, will follow Sarina Wiegman’s England into the quarterfinals later this week. Prime among them: What, exactly, was Lauren James thinking?James, 21, had been a revelation for England at her first World Cup, scoring three goals in four games — one against Denmark and then two against China — as her team built momentum and expectations in the group stage.But in the 87th minute against Nigeria, she threw her tournament into jeopardy with a stunning loss of composure: Fouled near the sideline, James responded with a shove to the back of her fallen opponent, Michelle Alozie, and then, inexplicably, a stamp on Alozie’s back as she jogged away.The action was flagged for the Honduran referee, Melissa Borjas, by the video assistant referee. Borjas jogged over to see a replay on the sideline monitor and returned to produce a red card. James was off, and England was down to 10 players just as the game went to extra time.When might she be back? That is unclear. The red card would mean a one-game suspension. But since it was for violent conduct, FIFA will review the incident and could choose to extend her ban.“It was a split second,” Wiegman said of James’s red card. “She’s an inexperienced player on this stage and she’s done really well. And I think in a split second, she just sort of lost her emotions.”On a team already weakened by injuries, the ejection of James could be a game-changer, especially after another valuable midfielder, Keira Walsh, was subbed off after 120 minutes when she appeared to sustain an injury.Her presence on the field at that moment had drawn questions by itself: Walsh had injured a knee early in the group stage, so seriously that it was initially feared she would miss the rest of the tournament. But she only missed one game, against China, and then returned to the starting lineup on Monday.Now she is limping again, and her fitness — just like James’s suspension — will hang over England as it prepares for a quarterfinal against the Colombia-Jamaica winner on Saturday.But that, and the other questions, can wait. For now England is alive, and that is all that matters. More

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      For Megan Rapinoe, an Ending Not Even She Could Have Imagined

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      A missed penalty kick was a cruel way to draw down the curtain on a star’s World Cup career. But her influence and legacy were never about soccer alone.It ended in the most excruciating way for Megan Rapinoe: a penalty kick skied over the crossbar, shock, disappointment, a rueful smile to herself.“It’s just like a sick joke to miss a penalty,” Rapinoe said after the United States was eliminated, 5-4, on penalty kicks after a scoreless tie with Sweden on Sunday in the round of 16 at the Women’s World Cup in Melbourne, Australia.Rapinoe could not remember the last time she missed a penalty kick. She was sent on as a substitute late in Sunday’s game because she was so reliable. It was her penalty kick that provided the decisive goal in the final of the 2019 World Cup. This time, accuracy betrayed her on a night when age and injury showed in her legs.There is more soccer to play for Rapinoe, a National Women’s Soccer League championship to chase in Seattle with the OL Reign. But her retirement, announced in July, will arrive this fall at age 38. The light of Rapinoe’s renowned and polarizing career as a player and activist has now gone into shadow on the World Cup stage, where she played her best and emphatically spoke her mind.She was a defining athlete of her generation, one of the first publicly gay players on the women’s national soccer team; a ruthless and creative forward who delivered in the most tense and revealing moments; a self-described “walking protest” who jousted with a president, knelt for the national anthem and fought for equal pay and equitable treatment on L.G.B.T.Q. issues with what Julie Foudy, a former national team captain, has described as a willingness to “boldly disrupt.”Rapinoe’s minutes against Sweden were her last in the World Cup.Quinn Rooney/Getty ImagesAfter Sunday’s game, Rapinoe joked with reporters but tears also came into her eyes.“Well, now that I’m 38 and in therapy, I was like, ‘This is life,’” she said. Of course, she wished the United States was still competing for a third consecutive World Cup title. Of course, she wished there was at least one more game to play. But, Rapinoe added, “I feel like it doesn’t take away anything from this experience or my career in general.”During the 2019 Women’s World Cup, Franklin Foer, writing in The Atlantic, called Rapinoe “her generation’s Muhammad Ali,” who like the heavyweight boxing champion also became a “hero of resistance” with “sly humor and irresistible swagger.”Sometimes Rapinoe worked blue, both in her choice of hair color and in her choice of words. She was unfailingly and unguardedly open, never more so than during that 2019 World Cup in France.Before the tournament, Rapinoe and her teammates sued the United States Soccer Federation for gender discrimination. Then, in the days approaching an intense quarterfinal match against France in Paris in June 2019, Rapinoe feuded publicly with President Donald J. Trump, who admonished her to win before talking.Instead of wilting amid the scrutiny, she scored both goals in a 2-1 American victory and ran toward the corner flag, spreading her arms in celebration and defiance.Rapinoe celebrating a goal against France at the 2019 World Cup.Franck Fife/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesAfterward, Rapinoe was quoted as saying with joyful seriousness about her performance, which came during Pride Month, “Go gays!” And: “You can’t win a championship without gays on your team — it’s never been done before, ever. That’s science, right there.”Rachel Allison, an associate professor of sociology at Mississippi State University who studies women’s soccer, said, “What I think is really extraordinary about her, and will ultimately place her among the greats, is how she led through activism, which generated enormous levels of public scrutiny, while at the same time remaining in top athletic form and unapologetically herself through it all.”Winning, Rapinoe acknowledged often, was a necessary platform on which to build her activism. She will retire with two World Cup titles and one Olympic gold medal. In 2019, she was honored as the World Cup’s best player and leading scorer.“Without the winning you don’t get the media, you don’t get the eyes, you don’t get the fans, you don’t get the ability to say what you want all the time because people want to talk to you no matter what,” Rapinoe said earlier in this tournament.In the 2011 Women’s World Cup, Rapinoe helped to deliver one of the most urgent and famous victories for the women’s national team. In the dying moments of a quarterfinal match against Brazil, she delivered a feathery cross to Abby Wambach, whose header helped turn an apparent defeat into eventual victory in penalty kicks.Rapinoe celebrating with Wambach after a goal against Brazil at the 2011 World Cup.Martin Rose/Getty ImagesIt was the latest goal ever scored during a Women’s World Cup match, a moment in which, Rapinoe said, “I announced myself.”The United States lost the 2011 final to Japan, but a new generation of players, Rapinoe among them, had “reignited the team’s popularity,” halting its slide toward “cultural irrelevance” after the retirement of stars like Mia Hamm from the 1999 World Cup champion team, said Caitlin Murray, a soccer journalist and the author of “The National Team: The Inside Story of the Women Who Changed Soccer.”“From 2005 to 2011, the team had faded into obscurity,” Murray said in an email. The victory over Brazil “was a jolt that made people want to pay attention again.”Rapinoe’s arrival also broadened and evolved the advocacy embraced by the U.S. women’s teams before her. The groundbreaking 1999 team advocated equitable treatment on issues mostly related to soccer itself. Rapinoe championed some of the same issues, but also protested against police brutality and vigorously campaigned for the rights of gay and transgender people.“Her legacy is being a voice for some people who feel like they don’t have one,” said Briana Scurry, the goalkeeper on the 1999 team. “She’s willing to stick her neck out there and take the criticism that other people may not be willing to do.”In 2016, Rapinoe took a knee during the playing of the national anthem before a match in solidarity with Colin Kaepernick’s protest against police brutality and social injustice. W.N.B.A. players were also kneeling during that period, but it was Rapinoe’s protest that made national headlines.Rapinoe taking a knee in 2016.John Bazemore/Associated PressWhile Rapinoe has acknowledged her white privilege, said Allison, the sociology professor, she received outsize attention for her racial activism without experiencing the harsh consequences that Black athletes historically receive for protests. Ali, for instance, was stripped of his heavyweight title for refusing to fight in the Vietnam War and barred from boxing for three years.“For a lot of Black athletes, it has cost them very dearly, sometimes their entire careers,” Allison said, while Rapinoe “has largely lost nothing and even gained from her activism.”It was clear during Sunday’s playing of the U.S. anthem that not all of Rapinoe’s teammates agreed with her continued refusal to sing or place her hand over her heart. On a podcast last year, the former American stars Carli Lloyd and Hope Solo expressed discomfort with what they described as the “culture” of the national team extending its advocacy beyond a desire to win soccer matches to playing “political and social games.”Many others were more embracing of Rapinoe’s athletic and activist achievements. Four months after Lloyd and Solo criticized her, Rapinoe was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor. And the U.S. women’s team signed a collective bargaining agreement to receive equal pay with the men’s national team after decades of negotiations and years of court fights.Rapinoe receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Biden last year.Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesWithout Rapinoe’s exceptional performances in the 2019 World Cup, Murray said, “the U.S. probably doesn’t win that tournament, and the team probably doesn’t have the momentum in their equal pay fight to prompt U.S. Soccer to make a deal.”Everything considered, it feels like the right time to end her career, Rapinoe said Sunday. And, she added, maybe there was even dark humor in missing a penalty kick. “I joke too often, always in the wrong places and inappropriately,” she said, “so maybe this is ha-ha at the end.” More

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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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      World Cup: Alessia Russo and England See Big Things Ahead

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      The secret of the goal that announced Alessia Russo to the world, the out-of-nowhere backheel that stunned Sweden during England’s run to the European Championship last summer, was that Russo wasn’t sure it would happen. That the ball went in the net was, in her words, “maybe luck, maybe instinct.”Last week, the goal she scored to open her account at her first World Cup was something else altogether: a silky first touch, an effortless shift of her weight, a confident finish into the lower left corner. That goal was a striker’s finish, the first of what Russo, and England, hopes will be many more.“I play my best football when I’m feeling good and happy and confident,” the 24-year-old Russo said.That on-pitch confidence, though, has not always been evident in Russo’s performances in the gap between that goal and her latest one.In fact, her goal in England’s 6-1 hammering of China ended a six-month international goal drought for Russo. In the interim, she had found herself battling for a place as the team’s starting striker with Rachel Daly. In an interview in England before the World Cup, Russo admitted that it had been a lesson in patience but also a learning experience in what it takes to keep a place on one of the world’s best teams.Alessia Russo, 24, scored her first World Cup goal in England’s last game in the group stage, against China.James Elsby/Associated Press“All I can do is focus on myself, my game, what I can do to get better and how ready I can be going into the summer,” she said. “And that’s all I can control.”Could the knockout stages, then, be liftoff for Russo? Despite the injuries to several key players that marred preparations for England and continued in Australia, the European champions have been building momentum ahead of their meeting with Nigeria on Monday in the round of 16. Midfielder Lauren James has emerged as a star in midfield, and Russo is poised to benefit.“She just really has a feeling for scoring goals,” England’s coach, Sarina Wiegman, said. “She is a good header. She has a good shot. She just is a real No. 9.”The statistics speak for themselves. Russo has scored 12 goals in 25 England appearances, among them an 11-minute hat trick — the fastest ever scored by an England women’s player.Such is her status that, earlier this year, she was the subject of two world-record transfer bids. Her club at the time, Manchester United, rejected both, but she has since joined Arsenal, the suitor that made both offers, on a free transfer after her United contract expired.Her rise, off the back of her performances in England’s triumph at the European Championship last year, has come at a historic time for the women’s game. Record viewing figures. Sold-out stadiums. And, as Russo knows all too well, competitive transfer windows.“It’s what we’ve wanted for the women’s game, for years and years,” she said. She wants the clamor to continue: “I hope to still see it climbing the way it is now. The stages it deserves. The crowds it deserves, which we’re all getting now.”Russo against Denmark. “I play my best football when I’m feeling good and happy and confident,” she said.Rick Rycroft/Associated PressRusso is still one of the younger players on her squad. But she is different in that she is used to being fully professional, something that not all of her teammates have experienced. England’s right back Lucy Bronze, for example, once worked at Domino’s Pizza as she made her way as a pro and an international.“There’s some really, really humbling stories that you hear of older players that have had to work crazy hours and then go to training and then travel to games,” Russo said. “And it’s just like, ‘How was that a thing?’”For Russo, soccer was always an easy choice. She grew up playing with her two older brothers in the yard and, at times, in the house, “until Mom would tell us off for kicking the ball inside.”She began her youth career at Charlton Athletic and later joined Chelsea before moving to the United States to play for the University of North Carolina. She only returned to England in 2020, after signing for Manchester United, the club she grew up supporting.Despite her path through professional teams and elite programs, though, Russo admitted to grappling with her newfound fame after the Euros. Before her team became European champions, she had a “pretty normal life,” she said. And now? “That’s changed.”“Your life,” she said, “completely changes after one tournament.” And stardom, she found — part of the same growth that has raised the value of players and the profile of the game — has proved difficult at times.“The attention that comes with women’s football now is hard to manage as a player,” she said.So after a quiet start to the World Cup, Russo has made her entrance. Next up: a tough encounter during England’s round-of-16 match against Nigeria, which beat the home team, Australia, and helped eliminate the Olympic champion, Canada, in the group stage.This spring, Russo said she was confident that the goals, and the wins, would eventually come. Now both are here, and England is thinking bigger.“You go into every single tournament wanting and expecting to win,” she said. The European Championship, she said, lit a “fire to want to go and win more.” Lifting the World Cup would be the ultimate next step.“I just want to win,” she said, “as much as I can.”Asanka Brendon Ratnayake/Reuters More

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      What Is the World Cup Headband Worn By the U.S. Players?

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      Alex Morgan can easily rattle off the colors of the headbands worn by her United States teammates.She wears pink, as does Rose Lavelle. Sophia Smith likes black. Julie Ertz prefers a shade closer to Tiffany blue. Lindsey Horan wears red, mostly because Morgan doesn’t.“One of the first times I wore pink, someone said I’m trying to copy Alex Morgan,” Horan said.Morgan laughed. “I never knew that,” she said.Soccer’s favorite headband, though, isn’t a headband at all. The sheer colored strips keeping some of the world’s best athletes’ hair in place is actually what is known as pre-wrap — a thin, stretchy medical gauze intended to be wrapped around injured knees or ankles before they are taped, in part to protect the skin.And while both men and women long ago co-opted the athletic dressing for a more prominent purpose in their hair, Morgan and other women’s soccer players have turned pre-wrap into a symbol of women’s sports — and soccer in particular — to accent their team kits and express individuality on the field.“There is a kind of unique, almost strategic use of pre-wrap in women’s soccer,” said Rachel Allison, a sociology professor at Mississippi State who has studied how the sport has marketed itself. “Obviously, wearing the headband can be functional in terms of holding your hair back while you’re playing the sport, but I think it’s become far more than that.”Morgan, for example, began wearing pink pre-wrap so that her parents could pick her out in a sea of ponytails on the soccer field, and later chose the color to honor her mother-in-law, who is a breast cancer survivor. Morgan is now even sponsored by one of the primary manufacturers of pre-wrap, Mueller Sports Medicine.“These are forms of individual self expression, but they’re also really important to how we’re marketing women’s sport,” Allison said. “They become part of the storytelling that we do around who these women are, not only as players, but also people in ways that help to connect to the audience.”The pre-wrap features prominently in the branding of the players, including how they are portrayed in various merchandise. Before the tournament, goalkeeper Alyssa Naeher shared a picture of a figurine clipped to her bag that depicted Becky Sauerbrunn, the defender and former captain of the U.S. team who is out of the World Cup with a foot injury, complete with a pink strip across her forehead.Brett Mueller, the chief executive of Mueller Sports Medicine, said the company originally began producing pre-wrap in the 1970s for use in the N.F.L. and N.B.A., but it became popular as a hair accessory for women and girls after referees said they couldn’t wear hard plastic barrettes or clips because of injury risks. Quickly, he said, his company had to expand its color offerings from the original tan, first to popular school colors and then to a brighter, wider range — including pink.“It’s exciting that these athletes — and our team is so good, too — are using our product,” Mueller said, adding: “But we didn’t design it for that.”Allison said that when she played college soccer at Grinnell College in Iowa, where she graduated in 2007, a couple of her teammates wore the gauzy headbands. Many more people do now, she said.“It’s not uncommon to see other people, especially girls or young women, wearing pre-wrap when they’re in the stands watching,” Allison said. “It’s a way for them to symbolize their fandom.”There are two camps of pre-wrap headbands: those who roll it into thin, tubular strands that stand up slightly on their heads, like Morgan and Horan, and those who spread it flat on top of their hair, like Smith and Ertz. The method matters — midfielder Rose Lavelle wears pink pre-wrap, but as a member of Team Flat, she’s safe from comparisons to Morgan.And while it’s most obvious in the players’ hair, Morgan said the team also uses pre-wrap for its originally intended purpose: underneath their shin guards and also to tape up ankles.“Pre-wrap is everywhere,” Morgan said. “You look in the bins, and it’s endless pre-wrap.” More