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    How Women’s Soccer Is Embracing Mental Health

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    Elite soccer didn’t always welcome players’ requests for help. Scandals, attitudes and support programs are changing that.The one thing she could not do, Sinead Farrelly knew, was talk. Nobody had ever told her that explicitly, of course. It was just something she understood. Soccer, her first time around, operated under what she can now call a “culture of silence.”The perceived delicacy of the sport meant that principle applied publicly almost as a matter of policy. Only a little more than a decade ago, Farrelly and her peers playing in professional leagues — first the W.P.S. and then, after its dissolution, the incipient N.W.S.L — did so keenly aware of their own mortality.“You want fans to come so the league can survive,” Farrelly said. “You can’t be sharing how bad it is or what the conditions are really like. You have to put on a show for the development of sport. You owe it to yourself, your teammates, future generations.” It felt, to her, like “living a double life.”Something darker held the omertà in place privately, among the players themselves. Years later, Farrelly would feel strong enough to tell the world what she had endured: years of psychological torment and allegations of coercive sex at the hands of the coach to whom she felt she owed her career.Her voice would bring about substantive change. The coach, Paul Riley, would receive a lifetime ban; her account would act as a prompt for the Yates Report, with its damning findings revealing a “league in which abuse and misconduct — verbal and emotional abuse and sexual misconduct — had become systemic.”At the time the abuse was happening, though, Farrelly did not feel that she could tell anyone what she was going through, not even her teammates. Perhaps part of that, she said, can be explained by her nature. Now, looking back, she is frank and open and disarmingly, breezily honest. Back then, she said, she was not “comfortable with being vulnerable.”But part of it, too, was a shared sense that saying something brings it into the world, gives it a shape and a form. “Opening those gates would have been too much,” she said, not just for her, but for her teammates as well. “You kind of operate on autopilot. You do not look at how dark it is. You kind of know that once you see something, you can’t unsee it.”It took a car accident for Farrelly to come to terms with her experiences. Recovering from her injuries required weeks “in a dark room, alone with myself,” she said. In those circumstances, there is only so much you can do to distract yourself. It speaks volumes that, now, she describes herself as “grateful” for the crash, which is probably the best gauge of the severity of what she had endured.It allowed her to identify a solution, a way to rebuild herself, and her life. She left soccer entirely. She did not kick a ball. She did not think about it. For seven years, she put that part of herself away.Elite soccer has an uneven, uneasy relationship with mental health. It is, as the United States defender Naomi Girma put it, extremely good at “calls to action.” The sport knows that there are performance benefits to players’ being able to cope with the pressures under which they are operating. A generous interpretation would have it that soccer understands on some level that the same logic probably applies outside the tightly guarded boundaries of its universe.It is less good at the action itself, the walking of the walk. The problem is not so much structural as essential. Elite sport is unapologetically cutthroat, inherently Darwinian.Players are not only competing with opponents but also with each other: for roster spots, for prominence, for fame and glory. Coaches are conditioned to weigh players for strength and weakness, whether that is technical or physical or mental. In that environment, showing any sort of vulnerability is — to put it mildly — disincentivized.Naomi Girma, No. 15, in a game against China in December.Rebecca Blackwell/Associated PressAnd so, even as clubs have in recent years recognized the obvious benefits of sports psychology, they have found another problem. Installing a psychologist at a training ground is one thing; convincing the players that entering that office is not a way of signaling to your teammates and your coach that you are struggling is quite another.Girma’s career thus far has been a rapid one — the top pick in the N.W.S.L. draft in 2022, she was the N.W.S.L. rookie of the year last season and U.S. Soccer’s women’s player of the year in 2023 — but it is still a relatively young one: Girma has only been a professional for two years.Still, though, she has encountered the idea that a capacity to tolerate pressure can be characterized as “grit,” a quality a player needs as much as pace or vision. “It is starting to shift a little,” she said. “Plenty of players work with sports psychologists. It’s normalized to talk, and to get help.”She attributes that in part to the willingness of clubs to pursue anything that looks even remotely like a marginal gain — her N.W.S.L. team, the San Diego Wave, employs a “wellness coach” — but believes the example set by athletes like Simone Biles is possibly even more influential.“To see someone like her, the best gymnast in the world, talking about her mental health shows that it doesn’t mean you can’t perform,” Girma said.The change, though, has been piecemeal, and delicate. Driven by the loss of one of her closest friends — Katie Meyer, a teammate at Stanford — to suicide in 2022, Girma has long believed a different approach was needed: not just something more systemic, but something more organic. She concluded it had to come from the players.“Teams create families,” she said. “You want people to feel as though they have a support system. Not necessarily from the whole group, but a couple of players within it who you can feel you can turn to when you need it.”Her answer will take shape this weekend, in a quiet hotel overlooking San Diego Bay. Girma, Farrelly and Becky Sauerbrunn, the longtime U.S. women’s team captain, will be among 20 players — including at least one from all 14 N.W.S.L. clubs — and a number of grass-roots organizations to attend Create the Space, a mental health retreat organized by Common Goal.Given that most, if not all, of the guests are less than a week away from reporting for preseason training, it should not be a surprise that a couple of practice sessions have been scheduled.The emphasis, though, will be on a different type of training. There will be classes, designed in conjunction with E-Motion, a community-focused counseling organization, on learning how to cope with loss, injury and retirement. The participants will be taught techniques drawn from movement therapy and somatic yoga.“We did not want to offer just one prescribed way of doing things,” said Lilli Barrett-O’Keefe, the executive director at Common Goal USA. “It was about showing the players various different ways and seeing what works for them.”Girma was named U.S. Soccer’s women’s player of the year this week.Abe Arredondo/Usa Today Sports, via Reuters ConThe selection of players invited was deliberately broad. Some are at the start of their careers, on the eve of their debut seasons as professionals. Others are at the autumn of theirs, beginning to confront the thought of life after soccer. Some have been affected by grief, others by injury. All, like the league itself, are still coming to terms with the widespread allegations of sexual abuse initially prompted by Farrelly’s allegations and then the reckoning of the Yates Report.The ambition is not only to help those in attendance, but to use it as a springboard “to start to shift the culture throughout the league,” Girma said.The best way to do that, Common Goal argues, is through the players. According to the organization’s research, players tend not to turn to family or friends outside soccer for support but to look inward, to their teammates. “It is a way of reclaiming power,” said Barrett-O’Keefe. “It is a way of saying, ‘I can help myself, and I can help my teammates.’”In the summer of 2022, Farrelly decided to go back to the game. She was not entirely sure she felt ready. She was afraid of any number of things: that she might not be good enough, that she might let herself down, that she might let other people down. “I’m comfortable being small,” she said. “There’s a part of my brain that is there to protect me from being hurt.”She knew, though, that at 33 she would not have another chance, and so she took the risk. She started training with Gotham F.C. She impressed enough to be given a contract. Within a year, she would be playing in her first World Cup.It has not been as easy as that timeline makes it sound. Farrelly has never regretted her decision to return to soccer, she said, but there were times when she was “crying every day,” when she was not sure if she could be what she once was, when the highs and the lows threatened to “overwhelm her.”This time, though, the culture had shifted. At Gotham, she could speak. Not just to her psychologist and her somatic therapist, but to other players. She could speak to her teammates about the fact she was using a psychologist. “I had to open up and be vulnerable,” she said. “At times, that meant having a vulnerability hangover, but I’m grateful for it.”Silence had forced her from the game; filling it helped her find her way back. She now believes, ardently, in sharing that with her peers and her successors. “We live in a society that teaches us that we are in competition with each other, that for one to succeed, someone else has to fail,” she said. “But we are starting to see what we can do if we lift each other up, instead.”Who Do You Think You Are? Franz Beckenbauer?Franz Beckenbauer won the World Cup with West Germany in 1974.Associated PressOnly two players — I think; this newsletter is always prepared to be corrected — have been afforded the ultimate honor of having their names attached to what might be described as an act of soccer. Johan Cruyff has his eponymous turn. Antonin Panenka is remembered every time anyone chips a penalty.There are others, of course, but they do not transcend either geographical or generational borders. Some will label a pirouette a Zidane turn; others might attribute it to Diego Maradona. Fans of a certain age will understand what is meant by a Blanco hop, but the meaning will be lost on younger (or older) audiences.It is probably as good a tribute as any to Franz Beckenbauer, then, that while he is not synonymous with a single move, he will forever be associated with a certain style. As the British broadcaster Mark Chapman pointed out this week, long after Beckenbauer had retired, players gracefully carrying the ball out from the defensive line were credited with/accused of behaving like Beckenbauer, something that will likely — hopefully — continue after his death this week at age 78.The Long HangoverIn one light, Napoli can be forgiven its precipitous decline this season. It was, you will remember, the most compelling soccer story of (at least) the first half of 2023: a club, and a city, breathlessly anticipating the end of a three-decade wait for an Italian championship. So ecstatic were the celebrations that it is no real surprise their aftereffects have lingered.In another light, though, this season is a source of some regret. The team that finally delivered Naples its first post-Diego Maradona title was one of those moments of happenstance: a set of players and a coach who dovetailed perfectly.Since then, Napoli has made a series of eminently avoidable errors. The club had an opportunity to build from a position of strength, but instead made poor coaching appointments — twice — and spent not inconsiderable amounts of money, poorly, in the transfer market. It is currently ninth in Serie A, and will struggle to return to the Champions League next season. The party, as it turned out, was all too brief. Still, at least it was a good one.Flares at Napoli, where the fire has gone.Marco Bertorello/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesCorrespondenceThe first weekend in January is, you will know, historically reserved for two of English soccer’s great traditions: the third round of the F.A. Cup; and talking about the waning, or otherwise, of the magic of the F.A. Cup.“It seems all of the big clubs are desperate to avoid cup replays, which used to be one of the highlights for the fans,” Henry Brown obliges. “But with the overload on the players these days, the reticence is understandable. Nonetheless, the financial bonus for the little guy is more essential than ever, and it would mean a huge step down if this glorious tradition were changed.”There are a couple of things here. The first is that, increasingly, the idea that it is only the major teams who disdain the F.A. Cup is outdated; clubs from the second-tier Championship seem — understandably, given that league’s hectic schedule — to regard it with even more contempt.Bristol City’s 1-1 draw at West Ham felt more like a victory, since it earned the Robins a lucrative replay at home on Tuesday.Adrian Dennis/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe second is that a lot of the discourse around the F.A. Cup ignores the salient fact that its primacy for previous generations can at least in part be traced to the role of television. Of course the cup occupied a position of unusual prominence for decades: For roughly half a century, it was the only soccer televised live in Britain. (We may return to this subject.)But most of all, we should be absolutely clear that there can be no clearer proof that the financial model of English soccer is fundamentally broken than the fact that there is no greater economic reward available to a whole swath of clubs than obtaining first an arbitrary meeting with and then drawing a game against one of the elite. If the big clubs want to abolish replays, they should perhaps start by contributing more to the monetary well-being of everyone else. More

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      How Coco Gauff Embodies the Biggest Story in Sports

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      As our Sports of The Times columnist moves to a new assignment, he reflects on a recurring theme from his tenure: the rise of female athletes.What perfect timing.That thought flashed through my mind as I sat courtside at Arthur Ashe Stadium last week, watching Coco Gauff poleax the backhand passing shot that sealed the U.S. Open and her first Grand Slam title.My thoughts were as much about the in-sync way Gauff struck that last ball as how the moment had lined up for this column.Gauff — a sensation now at 19, much as Venus and Serena Williams were at the same age — stepped closer to her destiny. With a major championship in hand, she is ready to be a leader on the women’s tennis tour and one of the guardians of the new era of female empowerment in sports.Her beginning provided a perfect ending for me. The Open was the last event I will cover as the Sports of The Times columnist. I’m moving to our National desk, where I’ll write feature stories about America’s wonder, complexity, trouble and promise.How perfect that the U.S. Open helped lower the curtain, with a women’s sport providing the tournament’s apex moment: Gauff’s three-set win over Aryna Sabalenka overshadowed an anticlimactic men’s final in which Novak Djokovic took his 24th major title with a straight-sets win over Daniil Medvedev. For me, women have been the story, and not just at the U.S. Open.Doak Campbell Stadium at Florida State University in May 2020, during the height of the pandemic.Joshua King for The New York TimesI took on this column in the late summer of 2020. The worst days of the pandemic can seem a hazy memory now, stuck in the back of our collective consciousness, as painful moments often are. Much of the sports world was shuttered and scrambling to figure out ways to get back to competition amid the loss of so many lives. Who knew when the rampaging virus would be tamed?At the same time, the ever-present inheritance of racism roiled the nation after the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor — both at the hands of police — and the brutal killing of a jogger, Ahmaud Arbery, by white racists.Remember the athletes — famous professionals and little-known amateurs in the United States and globally — and how they spoke out and led.And remember that Donald Trump was president then, spewing barbs at them, particularly at Black athletes who raised their voices or protested by having the temerity to kneel, exercising their right of peaceful protest during the playing of the national anthem.I wrote about all this and much more, and I tried to do so in a way that showed I was not interested in the kind of shouting matches that pervade much of sports journalism. I aimed to write thoughtfully about how sports and athletes intersect with the social issues that stir and vex our culture. I sought to be a strong voice in this space, and to add to the mix a good pinch of storytelling and the occasional piece spiced with a little cheeky fun. More than anything, I sought to live out the most tried-and-true of journalistic credos: comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable — or, in my parlance, fight for the outsiders and the outliers, the unseen and the overlooked.Which brings me back to a subject I considered often here, one embodied by Gauff hitting that backhand passing shot and walking off with a Grand Slam title and a winner’s check for $3 million: the rise of women in sports.Think of all we have witnessed in this arena over the last three years.Think of the W.N.B.A., the league’s leading role in the protests of 2020, and its continued strength as an amalgamation of women who are not afraid to challenge the status quo.Think of the winning fight by the U.S. women’s national soccer team for equal pay, or how female soccer players across the globe and in the N.W.S.L. stood up against harassing, abusive coaches.A women’s volleyball match drew more than 92,000 people to Memorial Stadium at the University of Nebraska earlier this month.Terry Ratzlaff for The New York TimesDid you see that volleyball game at the University of Nebraska, with 92,000 fans in the stands? Or all those record-breaking, packed-to-the-gills stadiums at the Women’s World Cup, with 75,000 on hand for the recent final in Australia?Yep, it’s a new era.Consider March Madness 2023. This was a year when the men’s event sat in the shadow of the women’s side — with its upsets, tension and quality. With the charismatic Angel Reese leading L.S.U. over Iowa for the national title. With Reese, bold and Black, sparking a conversation on race by taunting her white opponent, Caitlin Clark, the sharpshooting player of the year.Yes, on the court, track, field or wherever they compete, women can be as challenging, ornery, competitive and controversial as men. That needs to be celebrated.Where will this end? With a few exceptions, tennis being one, it’s hard to imagine women’s sports getting the kind of attention they deserve any time soon.Who gets the most money, notice and hosannas in youth sports? By and large, boys.Who runs most teams and controls most media that broadcast and write about the games? By and large, men.Who runs the companies that provide the sponsorship money? Yeah, primarily men.Change is coming. But change will take more time. Maybe a few generations more.The decks remain stacked in favor of guys, but women continue their fight. When it comes to the games we play and love to watch, that’s the biggest story in sports right now.A drawing of Billie Jean King at the U.S. Open earlier this month. Karsten Moran for The New York TimesHow perfect that this year’s U.S. Open would frame that story once again. Flushing Meadows was a two-week gala celebration of the 50th anniversary of Billie Jean King’s successful push for equal prize money at the event — a landmark in sports that still stands out for its boldness.And how fitting that on this golden anniversary — with Serena Williams now retired, with Billie Jean front and center during tributes all tournament long — Gauff would win her first Grand Slam event and do it by flashing the kind of poise that marks her as an heir to the throne.Thank you, Coco and Serena. Thank you, Billie Jean, and all the other female and male athletes who have gone against the status quo, emerged victorious, and are still in the fight.And thank you for following along as I’ve tried to stand for the outsiders and make sense of it all. More

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      in Soccer

      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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      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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      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

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      Inside U.S. Team, a Campaign to Avert Disaster Gets Personal

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      Blocking out criticism they call “noise,” Lindsey Horan and other veterans are taking a one-on-one approach to turning around their World Cup fortunes.In the days since the United States team narrowly avoided an embarrassing early elimination from the Women’s World Cup, Lindsey Horan, its co-captain, has been working the room.Horan wants a word, with many of the team’s veterans but especially the 14 World Cup rookies. So she has been tapping teammates on their shoulders and knocking on their hotel room doors and pulling them aside in training. Hey, she might say, can we chat for a few minutes?The message Horan has taken to every player in the dressing room is a simple one. Ignore “the noise” from critics of the team’s play. Embrace the high expectations that shadow the U.S. team. Remember why you started playing this game in the first place.“Find the joy,” Horan says, and the team will find its way.Perhaps as much as any U.S. player, Horan, who was named co-captain less than a month ago, has shouldered the burden of its uneven performances at this World Cup. Much has gone wrong, she admitted on Thursday, days before the United States will face Sweden in a round-of-16 match in Melbourne that will end the World Cup for one of them. But she has seen good things, too. And she has seen enough to know it can all snap back into place quickly. Because it has before.“Once we get a little bit more of that joy back and, you know, that feeling, things are going to move a bit better on the field,” Horan said. “We’re going to have more rhythm; we’re going to have more confidence.”Joy has been in short supply the last two weeks. The U.S. team came into the World Cup as the favorite to win it, but it is far from living up to its potential. The team lacks chemistry, despite its repeated claims to possess it in abundance. It has struggled to score goals, producing only four in three matches. Game after game, it has looked disorganized, or frustrated, or on its heels. In many ways, it has been the worst showing of the United States ever at this tournament. And it can still get worse.Everyone — those on the outside and the players and coaches inside the team’s bubble — knows what’s at stake for the U.S. team as it prepares to play Sweden. Its reputation as the best women’s soccer program in history, a four-time World Cup champion, a team that has never been knocked out of the tournament before the semifinals, hangs in the balance.In this edition of the World Cup, the United States has looked anything but invincible. And in Sweden it is facing a team that knows it as well as any other. The teams have met six times at the World Cup, and in every edition since 2007. The U.S. holds the upper hand in those meetings, having lost only one of them, but Sweden has its victories, too: It eliminated the United States in the quarterfinals at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics, and then humbled it again at the Tokyo Games in 2021.Now Sweden has breezed through the group stage, winning all three of its games and outscoring its opponents by 9-1. It is dangerous and also well-rested going into Sunday’s match, having benched a half dozen regulars in its final group game against Argentina.The U.S., meanwhile, will be without its midfield engine Rose Lavelle, who is suspended after receiving two yellow cards in the group stage. And it has been buffeted by critics, including a few it knows well. Tobin Heath, a World Cup winner in 2015 and 2019, suggested on her new podcast that the team had become tactically isolated, and perhaps a little naïve. Carli Lloyd, the former star U.S. midfielder who is working as a television analyst for the tournament, tore into the team, saying it had lost its passion and appeared to be taking its past success for granted. Opponents, she said, had lost their fear of the Americans because they could see the team’s “arrogance.”Horan bristled at that remark. “For anyone to question our mentality, you know, hurts a little bit,” she said. “But at the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter. I don’t really care.”Instead, Horan, 29, said she and several of the team’s most experienced players have taken it upon themselves to try to close ranks, and to persuade their teammates to start to believe in themselves again.After the Portugal game ended in a 0-0 draw, Kelley O’Hara, a defender competing in her fourth World Cup, leaned into the team’s huddle to deliver a forceful speech about drawing a line under the group stage and seeing how the knockouts offered a fresh start.Then she stood on the field side-by-side with Trinity Rodman, the young forward, while gesturing to spots on the field in an impromptu coaching session. Megan Rapinoe, another longtime veteran now relegated to a substitute’s role, has pulled teammates aside at halftime of matches and in training and in the hotel to share what she is seeing, to offer her experiences as counsel. Horan’s co-captain, Alex Morgan, has urged the team to rediscover its swagger.Some of Horan’s moments of leadership have been unspoken, like when she stood up to a challenge from the Netherlands team and scored a tying goal.John Cowpland/Associated PressAll the while, Horan has continued to make the rounds, to offer words of encouragement behind closed hotel-room doors, in training sessions and at team meals. She has been a conduit to carry the team’s ideas to the coaches, and a messenger to bring them back. She has spoken up, but also taken time to hear people out.The World Cup rookies are listening. Lynn Williams, a fixture on the team for years now taking part in her first World Cup. She said she had seen Horan take players aside and speak to the team’s coaches. The meetings, she said, take place one on one and in small groups, and they happen anywhere, and at any time. Sometimes, the messages are even unspoken, like the moment Horan shook off a hard challenge by a Netherlands player, strode to the penalty, shoved her aggressor in the chest and scored the tying goal.“Not only is she leading by like words, but also by example,” Williams said. “So, yeah, I think she’s done a really good job and in rallying the group and keeping us together.”Sitting at a table in front of reporters, Williams turned to Horan and said, “Thanks, Lindsey.” More

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      At the World Cup, the Field Thins and the Contenders Expand

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      After 48 games, half of the teams have been sent home. And yet it feels as if the field of potential winners is bigger than it was at the start.There are a few things that can be known for certain. Canada, the Olympic champion, will not add a Women’s World Cup to its list of honors this year. Marta, the Brazilian star, will not end her career with the one international trophy that has eluded her. And Germany, somehow, managed to engineer its own exit despite winning its first game by six goals. Three superpowers, from three continents, are out.At the end of two weeks, this World Cup has incontrovertibly delivered on its stated aim — to provide a stage on which women’s soccer’s simmering revolution might burst into life. That is about as far as the certainty stretches. Nigeria beat Australia. Colombia overcame Germany. The United States could not score against Portugal. Jamaica held France at bay.That unpredictability, that sense of old hierarchies and longstanding orders being overturned on a daily basis, has illuminated the World Cup, of course. After 48 games — three quarters of the tournament — half of the teams have been sent home, and yet it feels as if the field of potential winners is broader than it was even two weeks ago.In part, that is testament to the spirit, talent and organization of the teams — Jamaica, South Africa and Nigeria — that have gate-crashed what many had assumed would be a party for the richer nations of North America, Europe and Australasia. To some extent, though, it can be attributed not just to the strength of those new contenders, but to the weakness of the squads assumed to be at the head of the field.The United States is, strictly speaking, still on track for a third straight world title. Australia, co-hosting with New Zealand, eventually emerged unscathed from its group. And most of Europe’s squadron of contenders — England, Spain, France, Sweden and the Netherlands — is present, too.It would be an exaggeration, though, to suggest that any of them look entirely convincing. The United States was the width of a goal post away from group-stage elimination against Portugal. Vlatko Andonovski’s team has looked insipid in all three of its games. It has won only one, the first, against Vietnam. Against more polished opposition, the U.S. has seemed to lack both ideas and inspiration.The United States faces Sweden on Sunday. The loser is out.Andrew Cornaga/Associated PressIt has not been the most convincing start to the defense of its trophy, as several former members of the team — all working in the news media — have noted. Tobin Heath, Christen Press and Carli Lloyd have all offered a little friendly fire in the days since the United States’ scoreless draw with Portugal; their assessments, certainly, have been less glowing than those of the first lady, Jill Biden. That feedback may help to bind the squad together. It may have a galvanizing effect. It may not.As they attempt to work through the team’s issues and find some sort of patchwork solution, Andonovski and his staff will take small solace in the fact that almost every one of the Americans’ peers and rivals has experienced similar teething problems. This year, few teams have been immune from the joyous chaos of the tournament.Australia has lost its captain, its goal threat and its talisman — three roles, one Sam Kerr — and, until that demolition of Canada, it had started to show. It squeezed past Ireland and lost to Nigeria, all while seeming a little dazed and directionless in the absence of Kerr, who was supposed to be this tournament’s star.If Kerr can recover from her calf injury, then the Australian become a formidable prospect. If she cannot, then it is hard not to feel they are just a little diminished.Halimatu Ayinde and Nigeria brushed aside Australia to become one of three African teams in the round of 16.Patrick Hamilton/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesA similar suspicion lingers over England, the reigning European champion. Sarina Wiegman’s team has won all of its games relatively comfortably. It sealed first place in its group with an ominous 6-1 victory, against China, the sort of win that might yet look like an omen by the end of the month.The issue, though, is injury. England came into the tournament without several key players and has subsequently lost another, the Barcelona midfielder Keira Walsh. Wiegman, astute and pragmatic, has always managed to find solutions, but even her inventiveness would be tested should her resources thin any further.Other teams do not even have the excuse of injury for their inconsistency. Spain started the tournament well, smooth and imperious, and then promptly lost heavily to Japan. France started poorly, held to a draw by Jamaica, but has slowly grown in stature, defeating Brazil and then sauntering past Panama.Chloe Kelly and England have a favorable path and a bit of momentum.Brenton Edwards/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThere is an art to that, of course, a skill in gathering momentum as a tournament turns into the home straight. But then there is something to be said for serenity, too, and only two teams can lay claim to that state: Sweden, which sailed through what was admittedly a relatively kind group and now faces the U.S. in the round of 16, and Japan, which produced the performance of the tournament so far in picking apart Spain, both as a team and a concept.A couple of weeks ago, both of those countries would have been regarded as respectable outsiders, the sort of teams that might pose a threat if they caught a break, if some of their more illustrious opponents fell by the wayside, if they could click while others sputtered. Now, it does not look like quite such a long shot to suggest one or the other might be able to stay the course.It has taken 48 games to reach this point. Sixteen teams are gone. Sixteen teams remain. They will all have seen enough, experienced enough, to believe there is very little reason to rule anything out. There is very little that can be known, even now. The Women’s World Cup has reached that point when it becomes a smaller, more ruthless tournament. It feels, though, as if it is more open than it was at the start. More

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      U.S. Tries to Focus on What Comes After Portugal Tie

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      A close call against Portugal at the Women’s World Cup gave the United States a chance to consider what might have been, and then move past it.From where she stood, the ball looked to be headed straight into the goal, and Megan Rapinoe cursed loudly in her head.“My whole international career is over,” she said she thought as a shot by Portugal whistled toward the United States’ net in the final minutes on Tuesday, threatening to end Rapinoe’s final Women’s World Cup.Neither team had scored yet. The tie that loomed would mean the United States would advance to the next round. A loss would send the Americans packing their bags in what would have been the biggest upset in Women’s World Cup history.And so Rapinoe swore as the shot delivered by Portugal forward Ana Capeta headed toward the goal, watching wide-eyed with players on both sides as it veered just a smidgen too far to the right. The ball hit the right post and then, to the relief of Rapinoe and her team, caromed off it and away from the goal.“Girl,” Rapinoe said with a nervous laugh, “that was stressful.”Megan Rapinoe’s World Cup is not over yet. But for a moment, she thought it might be.Buda Mendes/Getty ImagesA few minutes later the game ended, still stuck in a 0-0 tie that meant the United States had finished second to the Netherlands in Group E. Now it’s off to the round of 16 in Melbourne, Australia, where on Sunday the U.S. team most likely will play Sweden. It is trying to forget just how close it came to the exit. It is ready to move on.Forget this long, frustrating night, Rapinoe and her teammates said. Forget that the United States has had trouble scoring at this tournament, they said, and that it just cannot figure out how to convert its passes and its possession into goals.That was the message delivered by Kelley O’Hara, a defender at her fourth World Cup, to the team as it huddled together near midfield after Tuesday’s great escape. O’Hara leaned in and looked around at the faces of her teammates — some sad, some blank, some determined. It doesn’t matter what happened here, she told them.“I just told them, ‘Listen, guys, we did what we had to do,’” O’Hara said. “‘This game’s done.’”Defender Crystal Dunn got the message. “We know we can be better,” she said. “It’s not like everyone’s sitting there like, ‘Wow, that was the most amazing performance we put together.’ But that’s where you have to dig deep.“That’s what it takes to win a World Cup. It’s not easy to do this. Right now we are very fortunate to have another opportunity to put on a great performance.”U.S. Coach Vlatko Andonovski changed his lineup but his team’s mistakes were worryingly familiar.Andrew Cornaga/Associated PressLater, the team’s coach, Vlatko Andonovski, took time to reflect on the result against Portugal, a team that was expected to be a challenge, but perhaps not quite that much of one.He said that he has seen bright spots in the way the U.S. team has played over its three group stage games, although Tuesday was a low point.“It’s not like we played well, by any means,” he said. “We all know it’s not good enough.”The United States, he knows, has work to do. But none of that is anything to panic about, striker Alex Morgan said. She had finished second in the group at past World Cups. Now the team has all the pieces it needs “to make it all the way” to the final. It just needs to put them together.It’s Andonovski’s job to do that. Against Portugal, he finally made some changes to his lineup. Now he will need to make a few more.On Tuesday, Rose Lavelle, the star midfielder restored to the starting lineup, used her creativity and energy to drive her teammates forward, to create chances for them to score. But after knocking down a Portuguese player, she received her second yellow card in two games, meaning she will be suspended from the round of 16 game.A second yellow card in two games means Rose Lavelle will be suspended in the round of 16.Buda Mendes/Getty ImagesO’Hara said it was disappointing that Lavelle wouldn’t be able to play on Sunday, especially after she came back from an injury and was building back her minutes. She had been restored to the lineup to maximize her “energy, her fight and her aggressiveness and just her flair,” O’Hara said, though she had no details about how the team would regain its confidence now that Lavelle will be out. She frowned when asked how the team will regroup mentally.“We’re just going to do a couple of Kumbayas, and we’ll be good,” she said before quickly turning and walking off.Rapinoe was not sure, either, of how, exactly, the team would rebuild its confidence. But, she said, it can easily be done. Earlier this week, she recalled a moment in the quarterfinal game versus Brazil at the 2011 World Cup, when the U.S. team was in extra time and was just seconds from elimination before she fired in a cross to Abby Wambach that was headed in for a tying goal.“I thought about that in the moment,” she said, a sensation she repeated on Tuesday. Facing an early exit back then, she added, left her talking to herself. “Actually, I’m like: ‘We’re going to be the worst team ever in the history of the national team. It’s going to be terrible.’“And then, obviously, you know, that play happens.”With one brilliant pass, Rapinoe had altered her team’s fate.Those kinds of small miracles, she knows, can happen again. More