There's a First Time for Everything
The U.S. Women's National Team's 2-0 loss to Norway today marks the first time the women have lost a group match in a world championship, ever. The U.S. dug themselves in a hole early and were unable to dig themselves out.
Leni Larsen Kaurin opened the scoring for Norway in the second minute, heading the ball into an empty net. Hope Solo came off her line to challenge Kaurin and collided with Lori Chalupny who was defending the header. Stephanie Cox subbed in for Chalupny shortly after the collision in which she took a shot to the head. Chalupny is listed as day to day. She took significant time off in 2007 after a suffering a string of concussions. Hopefully her removal from the game was a precaution.
Norway's Melissa Wiik capitalized on an ill advised back pass from veteran defender Kate Markgraf moments later and in less than five minutes, the U.S. was down by two. After the match Markgraf took ownership of her uncharacteristic mistake.
"The second goal was totally my fault. I didn’t play the ball back hard enough to Hope (Solo) and I didn’t see the player either," she said.
The start of this match reminded me a bit of the 1999 World Cup quarter-final against Germany when the U.S. went down early on an own goal by Brandi Chastain. Chastain came back and scored the equalizer and the U.S. went on to win 3-2. I was hoping for a similar outcome today (and wouldn't it have been a great story for Markgraf to score the equalizer as her first goal), but it was not to be. The U.S. settled down and pretty much contained Norway for the rest of the match, but could not get anything going offensively.
Critics of Greg Ryan ball will not be impressed with the team's first significant match under Pia Sundhage. There were plenty of errant long balls and final passes to lament and we only saw glimpses of the beautiful possession soccer we were hoping for. Still, there were glimpses and I'm not ready to start the funeral march yet. While a Wambach-less offense at times seemed to lack passion and direction, the play of Heather O'Reilly was a bright spot as was Tobin Heath's when she subbed in late in the match.
A part of me is screaming that this result is an unprecedented disaster, but I'm going to write it off as Olympic jitters and assume this team will come back strong against Japan on Saturday. I hope I'm not in denial. Coach Sundhage and Captain Christie Rampone have to help the team put this rocky start behind them.
“We have a choice right now. You can imagine (what it can do to a team) to give up two early goals playing in your first game," said Sundhage. "What is very important is to keep our style and that is something we as coaches will emphasize. We can look at bad things, and we will adjust, but also look at good parts in the game where we created chances and where we kept possession and played pretty good soccer.”
The U.S. has two group games to win and the result today sets up a potential meeting with Germany or Brazil in the quarter-finals.
Comments
Speed?
GLB
Friday August 08 2008 08:33:35 pm
Outsiders question
Joe Webster
Friday August 08 2008 10:41:53 am
USWNT-Norway
JordanCornblog
Friday August 08 2008 05:35:18 am
Thanks for this perspective!
Jennifer Doyle
Thursday August 07 2008 03:06:56 am