Sweden won against USA in a penalty shootout as USA get eliminated in the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023.
More drama arose as the unprecedented and an unpredictable group stage went down to the wire ended dramatically in a penalty shootout.
The first two teams to book themselves a berths in the FIFA Women’s World Cup is Spain and Japan. Spain and Japan made their way to the quarter finals following their wins against Switzerland and Norway on Saturday.
The next team to make their place in the quarter-finals was the Netherlands in the early hours of Sunday. Jill Roord and Lineth Beerensteyn’s Goals helped the team to ensure a win over South Africa who themselves are history –makers.
As the game between USA and Sweden processed Kelly O’Hara, Megan Rapinoe and Sophia missed their spot kicks and after that Sweden progressed themselves a 5-4 win in the shootout. The penalties were needed for both the teams to separate as the game was goalless after 120 minutes.
Sweden came into a heavyweight contest with 100% record after winning all the three games in the group stage. Their victory over USA was last encountered in the Olympics of 2021.
Meanwhile, as USWNT drew the game with Portugal and Netherland on their way to edging themselves into the round of 16. Whereas, they won the opening game against the Vietnam. As is was a controversial tournament and was nervy for the reigning back-to-back world champions, it was confirmed that their exit is going to be in a brutal circumstances.
Mark Wakefield, wrote that after exiting the Women’s World Cup against and at the hands of Sweden, the USWNT showed their class. On Sunday, in the round of 16 the US women against Sweden were held to a goalless draw. After 90 minutes the game ended goalless and proceeded to extra time, where the match was decide by penalty shootout.
The players who missed their spot-kicks in the shootout were Kelley O’Hara, Megan Rapinoe and Sophia Smith. Alyssa Naeher, the goalkeeper of the team even stepped up to score in the game from the spot during the shootout, but unfortunately she couldn’t prevent her country to lose the competition by 5-4.
Lindsey Horan, the captain of USA team spoke to ITV Sports after the game where she stated that, first and foremost she is very proud of the team and think that they played beautiful football today. As they did create chances, but didn’t score.
Milli Bright, captain of England team says that the women’s game in 2023 World Cup has “gone to a new level.” Germany, Canada and Brazil were eliminated during the tournament despite being the top 10 ranked sides. Meanwhile these 3 sides in the last 16 have never advanced beyond the group stage previously.
After the win against the US, Sweden will Japan against Japan in the last of the quarter-finals. And whereas for US it was earlier when they have been knockout from the tournament and disqualified. It was a humbling experience for the reigning team champions. The game had a very dramatic finish in Melbourne.
