Tipsheet: Sweden's World Cup upset of the U.S. caps the evolution of women's soccer

Feb 13, 2024

The tie helped the United States avoid the biggest upset in tournament history and was just enough to ensure the Americans advanced to the knockout round.

Sweden's team celebrate after defeating the United States in a penalty shootout Sunday in their Women's World Cup round of 16 match in Melbourne, Australia.

Step by step, the pioneering stars of the U.S. Women’s National Team made the FIFA Women’s World Cup a thing.

They led their sport out from the long shadows of the men’s game. They helped build a big stage of their own. They filled stadiums with roaring fans, enjoyed commercial success and fought for pay equity.

They inspired soccer officials around the world to pour more resources into the women’s game.

With their demise at this Women’s World Cup in the land Down Under, their work is complete. Their sport is truly global now -- not nearly to the extent of the men’s game, but with quality competition spread across whole continents and hemispheres.

After running roughshod over lesser competition while winning the previous two Women's World Cups, the USWNT squad has fallen back into the pack as one of the many programs capable of winning it all.

This year they didn’t. The Americans advanced after an unimpressive pool showing and immediately fell in the knockout round, losing to Sweden on penalty kicks.

Their loss embodied everything that makes soccer compelling. This is a agonizingly deliberate sport, with matches decided by flashes of brilliance and success or failure in the moment . . . as well as lucky breaks or untimely misfortune.

The Americans controlled play and generated myriad scoring chances. Sweden goalkeeper Zecura Musovic made save after diving save. Time ran out with the score 0-0.

The match went to penalty kicks, arguably the cruelest method of resolving top-level competition in all of sports. The soccer goal is the size of a barn and yet, under the incredible do-or-die pressure of single-elimination play, the best players in the world can miss the barn.

U.S. star Megan Rapinoe was among those who missed the barn.

And on the decisive shot of the excruciating seven-round sequence, American goalkeeper Alyssa Naeher dove to stop a shot by Sweden’s Lina Hurtig.

The ball popped up into the air over the goal line. When it came down, Naeher made a second save. Time froze with Hurtig believing she kept the ball out and Htig wondering if she scored.

Modern technology allows for exacting goal review. In this case the ball crossed the goal line by perhaps a millimeter, perhaps less. Sweden's players celebrated, after the pause, and the Americans exited in disbelief.

“Everything was clicking except that final piece, putting that ball in the back of the net,” co-captain Lindsey Horan told reporters afterward.

“This is a special team,” Alex Morgan said. “It's just really terrible that we won't get a chance to continue because this really was a special group.”

In the end, though, it wasn’t a special group. The USWNT was just another really good team, one of many on the international stage these days after the sport’s organic growth.

Going forward, the Americans must compete against competition that will only get deeper and better. Their pioneering stars triggered the transformation of the sport and future versions of the USWNT will have to deal with that reality.

Now that the Americans are no longer automatic favorites, we can say that women’s soccer has fully arrived.

Here is what folks were writing about the Americans’ loss:

Candace Buckner, Washington Post: “Alyssa Naeher cradled something very important — the ball — and refused to let go, as if by hugging it close she just might get that call reversed. Megan Rapinoe smiled through teary eyes, her emotions clashing as the end of her famed career ambled to an unfitting close. Those are the faces of utter and abject disappointment. We’ve never seen the U.S. women’s national team look like this — like lost tourists at a tournament they had once known so well. Williams’s traumatized expression. Naeher appearing as though she would like to have a word with management to file a very angry complaint. Rapinoe wilting in her final international match and looking unsure whether to laugh or cry during her last moments on a cold Sunday night at Melbourne Rectangular Stadium. Almost a month ago, they arrived at the World Cup held in Australia and New Zealand, and hopefully the players at least got some cool, new stamps on their passports — because they’re certainly not coming home with a third consecutive trophy. We’ve never watched the Americans leave the World Cup this early. This will officially be scored as the U.S. women losing, 5-4, to Sweden on penalty kicks after a scoreless draw. However, the record does not show the agony. It was seen through the players in this storied program, who performed so unevenly that American dominance in this game should now be spoken of in the past tense. And it was felt by the fans who traveled across the globe, reworking their itineraries on the fly and fighting off jet lag just to get their hearts broken in a different hemisphere.”

Nancy Armour, USA Today: “This end was months, years even, in the making. Trace it back to the injury in April of Mallory Swanson, who had single-handedly been carrying the team. Or the injury last year to Catarina Macario, whose wizardry with the ball is both breathtaking and, for opponents, backbreaking. Trace it all the way back to the Tokyo Olympics, when the USWNT first looked vulnerable. Old and slow. And beatable. For all of the USWNT's trophies and stars – on their jerseys and on the field – the world recognized the Americans' flaws in that tournament. Whether it was injuries, the wrong personnel choices, the wrong tactics or the wrong coach, the USWNT couldn't find fixes in the months that followed. And they, and their legacy, paid the price in this tournament. The USWNT didn't lose because a millimeter of the ball crossed the line on Lina Hurtig's penalty attempt, giving Sweden a 5-4 edge on penalties after a scoreless draw through regulation and 30 minutes of overtime. Or because Sophia Smith skied her penalty shot and Kelley O'Hara banged hers off the post. Or even because Megan Rapinoe, so automatic on penalties coach Vlatko Andonovski said she'd be his first choice if his life was dependent upon it, skied hers. No, the USWNT lost because they squandered chance after chance after chance, in this game and so many others over the past several years.”

Brian Phillips, The Ringer: “It was impossible to escape the feeling that some new kind of uncertainty had crept into the culture of the USWNT. The culture of sports as a whole has been in the midst of a generational paradigm shift, as the driven, win-at-all-costs warrior mentality of older athletes has slowly given way to a newer, more forgiving outlook that prioritizes mental health and overall well-being. The USWNT, always a flash point for debates at the intersection of sports and society and under enormous pressure to be ‘inspiring’ (whatever that means) at all times, never quite seemed to find its identity within this shifting context. The players danced and signed autographs, to (Carli) Lloyd’s fury, after the dispiriting 0-0 draw with Portugal that earned them a pass to the knockout rounds. The players also clearly wanted and expected to win this tournament. The question is: Do you reach greatness when you’re happy, or do you reach happiness when you’re great? Either path can surely get you to your goal, but only if you know which path you’re on. This team seemed uncomfortably suspended between both. The team has tactical problems to solve, but as it completes its transition from the Morgan-Rapinoe generation to the Smith–Trinity Rodman generation, it also has deeper questions to answer. For most of the last 25 years—through the equal-pay fight, through the anthem debates, through multiple international tournaments—the biggest part of the team’s identity has been based on winning. That’s gone, at least for now. There may not be many silver linings hiding in this American World Cup experience, but that the USWNT has lost its glow of invincibility, if only temporarily, might at least give the team the opportunity to figure out who it wants to be next.”

Caitlin Murray, ESPN.com: “The U.S. looked better against Sweden than it had all tournament, and yet the same problems persisted. The Americans couldn't create enough high-quality scoring chances, and whenever they did they couldn't finish. Some credit goes to Sweden goalkeeper Zecura Musovic. Her diving parry of a scorching Lindsey Horan volley in the 53rd minute was excellent. Her block on Morgan's 90th-minute header was just as good. In all, Musovic made 11 saves. Many of the USWNT's chances just weren't enough to test the Swedish keeper, though, either shot straight at Musovic or missing the goal entirely. The U.S. players never put on their shooting boots at this tournament, which is difficult to explain from such an attack-oriented team. At the 2023 World Cup, the team managed just four goals in four games. In its previous eight World Cups, the U.S. averaged 17.3 goals per tournament. It's not as if there weren't chances. Against Sweden, the Americans generated about 1.3 expected goals (xG), a measure of whether the spots that players shot from should be expected to result in goals. Over the course of the tournament, the U.S. generated more than nine xG yet scored only four, which makes it the most underperforming team at this tournament by that metric.”

Luis Paez-Pumar, The Defector: “At least from the start, Vlatko Andonovski, rightfully beleaguered for questionable tactics and lineup selections in the group stage, got this one right. This was the U.S.'s most complete performance of the tournament. A return to the 4-2-3-1 formation that USWNT had settled into late last year, with Emily Sonnett coming into midfield for the suspended Rose Lavelle and slotting in next to Andi Sullivan in a double pivot, offering the side something they lacked in the matches against the Netherlands and Portugal: control. Whereas those previous two opponents were able to overrun the midfield and force the U.S. to play long balls, Sweden chose a different tack, bolstering up a very strong defense and trying to win on set pieces. It mostly worked, though Sweden would be the ones going home sad if not for the heroics of Zecira Musovic, the 27-year-old goalie who plays for Chelsea in England. Musovic was the player of the match—with all due respect to the wonderful Naomi Girma, who was a brick wall for the United States—with several big saves (11 in total) keeping Sweden level. She was helped by some questionable touches and decisions from the American attack, particularly Alex Morgan, who leaves her worst World Cup to date with zero goals on what felt like 90 subpar shots (it was 18). It was shocking, then, that Morgan stayed on the field for as long as she did, though substitution conservatism had been the story of the tournament for the USWNT. Andonovski squandered a lot of the goodwill his match-opening gambit might have earned him by only making one substitution in regular time, and even that change was only due to Trinity Rodman's recent bout with illness. (Rodman was fantastic, the most dangerous attacker on the field, until her substitution in the 68th minute; her replacement, Lynn Williams, was similarly stellar down the right wing.) It wasn't until the 98th minute when Andonovoski finally took off Morgan for Alyssa Thomps—no, wait, that's wrong, it was Megan Rapinoe once again. Rapinoe is one of the most successful and important players in USWNT history, but she was clearly past it this tournament. It's somewhat fitting that her final appearance in this team's jersey, the one she helped add two stars to, saw her miscontrol and mishit a handful of balls, including one ill-fated moonshot in the penalty shootout.”

MEGAPHONE

"We deserved to win this game. We created enough to win this game. I thought we put up a fight, a battle. We represented this country proud."

U.S coach Vlatko Andonovski, on his team’s failure.

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The tie helped the United States avoid the biggest upset in tournament history and was just enough to ensure the Americans advanced to the kno…