One big job is done, but two more remain for Americans
LYON, France — From the moment the Women’s World Cup schedule came out last winter, the potential for a quarterfinal matchup between the United States and France possessed its own planetary gravity, commanding so much of the expectation and emotion and conversation inside the Americans’ soccer universe long before its scheduled date.
When the moment arrived Friday, it delivered in every way, a kind of platonic ideal of a sporting event. The Americans marveled at the atmosphere. Their ears throbbed from the noise. They struggled. They triumphed. Their emotions crested.
And now, they have nothing to show for it except another significant task, the chance to play up to two more matches before they can claim another world championship, starting with a semifinal Tuesday against England.
“The way this team looks at it is, nothing in the past matters unless we win the next two games,” forward Christen Press said Monday.
What comes after a moment everyone was waiting for?
That is the question the Americans, after the stirring high of the quarterfinal round, will attempt to answer for themselves and their fans this week as they redi
rect their attention fresh challenge.
England will demand all of it. The Lionesses, as the team is known, produced four consecutive shutouts after allowing a goal to Scotland in their opening game of the tournament. They cruised through the first two knockout-stage games, posting 3-0 victories over Cameroon and Norway. They have arrived in Lyon brimming with confidence.
The emotional trajectory of a big tournament can dip and fall from one moment to the next, and Press, who compared it to an ocean’s waves, said the Americans were uniquely qualified to ride it.
“It’s an advantage to have experienced players who have been into the late stages in the past because the deeper you get in the tournament, the more wild it gets, honestly,” she said.
The game against France on Friday felt about as wild as things can get. The matchup was endlessly hyped, ceaselessly analyzed and enthusiastically awaited. Outside analysts predicted the winner would go on to lift the trophy.
And yet somehow, the game still lived up to its billing, with the Americans emerging with a 2-1 victory, inside an emotionally supercharged Parc des Princes in Paris.
“That was an extraordinary game,” coach Jill Ellis said this week. “I don’t think I’ve ever been in a stadium quite like it.”
Goalkeeper Alyssa Naeher, who has been a member of the senior national team since 2014 but has not started in a major championship until this tournament, marveled at the atmosphere, too (even as she noted that her nephew somehow fell asleep inside the stadium in the 86th minute).
“It was the loudest stadium I’ve played in for sure,” Naeher said.
Forward Alex Morgan said in the moments after the closing whistle that the matchup had been a final masquerading as a quarterfinal.
But the Americans know the final, the real final, is still a game away, and that a formidable England team stands in their way.
And unlike the United States, England — which tied the Americans 2-2 in their last meeting in March — will have had this specific match circled on its calendar since the draw was revealed last year.
Phil Neville, England’s coach, said Sunday that he had wanted to “forward wind up to this moment” to a since he was hired in January 2018. It was natural for him and his players to put the United States, the world’s No. 1 team, in their sights.
“The 18-month plan, I believe, will come to fruition on Tuesday night,” Neville said, referring to his tenure with the team. “That will be the barometer of what we’ve done, what we’ve trained, what we’ve believed in, the work we’ve done off the pitch, the spirit, the togetherness.”
Neville called the United States “the best team in the world, without a shadow of a doubt,” but he has appeared to engage in moments of rhetorical gamesmanship, as well, during his pregame news conferences this week.
He has suggested that the French public wants England to win the World Cup. He has called his talented right back Lucy Bronze the best player in the world.
And he has chided the United States for sending two administrative staff members over the weekend to the hotel where England has been staying, and where the Americans would be assigned to stay if they advance to the finals, to check out the accommodations.
Neville seemed to imply that the U.S. Soccer scouting party had represented a breach of private space before a big match and, thus, was a violation of sporting etiquette. The United States characterized it as a routine logistical exercise, but that did not stop part of the British news media from playing up the incident as a sort of spy operation. On Monday, England even had a lone spectator ejected from its practice.
Ultimately, these were minor skirmishes before the meeting on the field, where England promised not to abandon its aggressive mindset in deference to the United States’ prodigious attacking threat, and where the stakes will be easy to grasp.
“Every game once you get past the group stage feels like a final,” Naeher said. “It’s win or go home at this point.”
Naeher and Press said the Americans, for all their desire to relentlessly press forward and score goals, were willing to mix up their tactics to suit the moment.
They did as much with all eyes on them against France, stacking their defense in the second half with a third center back — Julie Ertz — to protect their tenuous lead. That game showed the group had the mettle to handle a pressurepacked tournament final.
Now they will keep pushing toward the actual final.