Thursday’s 2-0 win over Sweden was supposed to be when the Women’s World Cup truly began for the USWNT. And while it was their most competitive match to date, the fact they had already advanced and only needed a draw to win the group, coupled with an early goal from Lindsay Horan, took much of the suspense out of the proceedings. But all that changes now.
The USWNT enters the knockout stage out the tournament as one of the favorites, but is slated to face a much tougher level of competition the rest of the way.
The defense was supposed to be the weak link in this U.S. squad, but they’ve yet to allow a goal so far in the tournament. One could view that as both a positive and a negative. It’s always good to overperform your expectations, but they haven’t had to figure out how to bounce back from a score, much less a deficit.
It took less than three minutes of gameplay for the U.S. to jump in front Thursday and the game never really felt in doubt, despite it being clearly more competitive than the first two affairs, a 13-0 annihilation of Thailand, following by a more-dominant-than-the-score-line, 3-0 dispatching of Chile. The Americans controlled 58 percent of possession and out-shot Sweden 18-6.
By winning Group F, the USWNT draws the second place team from Group B, Spain, in the Round of 16, a noon kick in Reims on Monday. The Americans edged Spain 1-0 back in January in the first ever meeting between the countries.
A win there puts the Americans on a collision course for what could well be the game of the tournament.
On the same side of the bracket, host nation France squares off against Brazil in the Round of 16, a tough draw, but where they will be favored. Should France advance, they will meet the U.S. in Paris at 3 p.m. Friday in a quarterfinal game that could well decide the ultimate tournament winner.
In that same trip this winter where they edged Spain, the USWNT saw their 28-match unbeaten streak snapped with a 3-1 loss to France.
If the UWNT can survive that matchup, they’ll get one of Australia, Cameroon, England or Norway in the semifinals Tuesday, July 2 in Lyon. Both England and Australia rank among the top six teams in the world.
It’s probably too early to speculate who the Americans might draw should they make the final, which takes place Sunday, July 7 also in Lyon.
FiveThirtyEight gives the USWNT a 78 percent chance to advance past Spain, the third-best odds of the eight Round of 16 favorites. The site also has them at just 46 percent to make the semifinals, 35 percent to make the final, and 24 percent to win the whole thing. While that’s the best odds of any team in the field, it’s still worse than 4/1, giving a sense of just how much more challenging the road ahead is expected to be.
