US Women Fall Short in Cup Final, America Shrugs

Every four years, America shines a light on a sport that we as a nation don't really care about all that much. They call it football, we call it soccer. It makes little difference: the lack of offensive fireworks has long kept the beautiful game from being anywhere near all that popular in the United States.

Strangely it's a fringe sport that most of us played at some point growing up. In fact, we tend to see it as a good one for getting the kids some exercise while enjoying the outdoors autumn weather. But being competitive on the international level is something the men's team has yet to approach, despite competing for over 60 years. Sure, people get up for it every four years, but it's only for a few weeks, and by the time the last eight teams are left standing, we're already talking about baseball again (not that we ever really stopped).

Instead, it's been the American women who have fared better in Cup play, though the female version of the event has only been held since 1991 (USA having won 2 of the 6 titles). The hype for the Women's World Cup is just about on par with that of the Men's, which is to say, most sports followers in a country filled with them at least keep an eye on it. And a lot of that has to do with the championship run by the Mia Hamm led '99 team, which culminated with America blasting China in penalty kicks and Brandi Chastain ripping her shirt off to cap an exciting female title run on a big media stage for the first time.

The afterglow wasn't so sweet. Soccer has remained in the margins for this country, despite the persistence of incredibly lame Major League Soccer. (Seriously, do you know anyone who has ever gone to a game? Me neither.) And the last two Cup runs by American women weren't so sweet. USA failed to make the final in either, finishing 3rd both times. But this Cup in Germany was supposed to be different. With a new generation of soccer stars leading the way, Hope Solo, Abby Wombach and Megan Rapinoe were supposed to end the drought. And then a funny thing happened: they didn't win.

After a wobbly 2-1 mark out of group play that was marred by a throttling at the hands of Sweden, the US gutted its way through an exciting penalty kick win against Brazil in the quarterfinals. France was too slow to stop the American girls from rolling through the semifinal round, but Japan stood its ground in the Final, dodging US attacks early and often.

Opportunities certainly abounded for the US side in the first half, but a couple of clanked posts and a hard crossbar still equaled no goals at the break. The second half saw 22 year-old star Alex Morgan give the Americans a late regulation lead off a strong finish of a long ball by Rapinoe.  But just minutes later, the US defense squandered the advantage on a bad defensive sequence in front of its own goal.  In extra time, Morgan hit Abby Wombach for a header goal that looked like it would clinch the game, only to see Japan's Hamare Sawa hit a on a sensational one-timer rocket off a corner kick to tie it up at 2-2 and force a shootout for the crown.

That's when it all got a little hazy for USA coach Pia Sundhage and the Americans. Instead of using her better shooters early on in the kickoff, Sundhage saved them till late. Japan struck early and often, and goalkeeper Ayumi Kaori was lockdown on her saves when it mattered most, while Solo faltered.  Cruelly,  American scorer Alex Morgan never even got a chance to shoot by the time Japan had clinched the penalties, and the Cup, 3-1.

A great win for the Japanese undoubtedly, particularly when you consider their country was truly devastated by a major earthquake and subsequent nuclear power disaster just a few months ago.  Sometimes sports can help the healing process, if only emotionally, and this victory will surely do some of that for Japan.

On the flip, simply a disheartening loss for the Americans, who believed so deeply and were so close to their ultimate goal, only to see it all slip away at the very end.  And now women's soccer will disappear from public view for the next four years, because that's just the way it goes around here. 

Canada 2015 anyone?


-JAB