The two sides then played 30 scoreless minutes of overtime, followed by a penalty shootout.
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It was a stunning ending for the US women, who only a year ago had captured the World Cup to great acclaim and then had been honored with a ticker-tape parade in NY. She stayed on the ground holding her lower right leg, but eventually got up on her own and stayed on the field. Not this time. This time she went pure loser and lout. The only times the Swedes formulated much of an attack were counterattacks on US slipups. “I’m upset they lost but I’ve lost to teams I thought we should have beat but it’s hard and the best thing to do is come back from mistakes to better yourself and play better as a team”.
A minute later, she scored.
Sweden took the lead in the 61st minute on Stina Blackstenius’ counter-attacking shot.
“To call them cowards for playing a tactically smart game is ridiculous and classless”, said Foudy, now an ESPN analyst ” and it really doesn’t represent the house that we built with the USA team”. Moments later, Sweden appeared to answer, only to have that goal ruled offside, even more curiously. Here is the gist of what irked the USA keeper. Lloyd had a shot that was deflected off a Swedish defender and went just wide. Morgan tied it when she converted from in front in the 76th minute.
Sundhage knows the USA team well, having coached the Americans for five years and led them to a pair of Olympic golds. After Heath turned over the ball at midfield, Sweden had a numbers edge going forward, but could not take advantage. Nearly immediately, Lotta Schelin of Sweden also scored, but had it called back for an offside (she wasn’t even close to being offside).
In the second session of extra time, Mallory Pugh went off with an injury. The result means the world’s top-ranked team will miss out on an Olympic medal in women’s soccer for the first time.
The favored United States crashed out of the women’s soccer tournament on penalties on Friday but host nation Brazil advanced from the quarterfinals the same way on a day of surprise and high drama.
Hope Solo may be a talented soccer player, but her attitude is what really floods media outlets.
“But when I looked at my players before starting the extra-time and penalties and I was so confident”. Every time the USA pushed for the advantage, Montenegro answered, and an unusual brutality call on Alex Roelse made life even more hard for the Americans. The United States possessed the ball for 64 percent of the game and attempted 26 shots to Sweden’s 3, but it could only put five of those shots on target and score once.
The delay brought a small smile to Dahlkvist’s face, before she easily beat Solo with the game-winning tally.
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Sweden’s calculatedly frustrating game plan worked because the designer of that plan, Pia Sundhage, knew exactly whom she was dealing with, having coaching the US from 2008-2012.
