U.S. stunned by Canada in Tokyo Olympics soccer semifinal, 1-0
The U.S. women’s soccer team never looked ready to win another Olympic gold medal.
A team that celebrated its 2019 World Cup championship with a ticker-tape parade in New York City was vulnerable from the first kick at the Tokyo Games.
It finally caught up with the world’s top-ranked team Monday in Kashima, Japan, against North American rival Canada.
In another thrilling showdown, the Canadians defeated their neighbors for the first time in 20 years, scoring a 1-0 victory in a semifinal matchup at the Summer Olympics.
Canada will play for the gold medal on Thursday (7 p.m. PDT) against Sweden, which defeated Australia 1-0 in the other semifinal match.
The United States is relegated to the bronze-medal game at 1 a.m. (PDT) on Thursday against Australia in a repeat of Group G game last week that ended in a scoreless tie.
“Any medal is really special and we can’t lose sight of that, especially considering the year that everyone’s gone through,” U.S. star Megan Rapione said.
But the standard for the American women is gold. The United States had won four gold medals and one silver medallion since women’s soccer was added to the Olympic program in 1996. Sweden eliminated the Americans in the quarterfinals in 2016 a year after the United States won the World Cup.
On Monday, Canada avenged a distasteful 4-3 defeat to the United States in the semifinals of the London Games in 2012 — an outcome they said was stolen from them by a referee’s calls.
Nine years ago, the Americans enjoyed late heroics from former Cal great Alex Morgan to advance to the gold-medal game.
They had no magic left Monday after Jessie Fleming’s precise penalty kick in the 74th minute was all Canada needed.
“You never want to lose, you never want to lose in a world championship,” said Rapinoe, who grew up in Redding. “You never want to lose to Canada.
“And, you don’t want to lose playing the way that we did. I think every player in the locker room has 100 things that we would all want to do better.”
The U.S. players had hoped for another opportunity to face the Swedes, who demolished them 3-0 in group play to open the Tokyo Games.
But first they needed to get past a team they had not lost to since 2001, and held a 51-3-7 advantage since their series started in 1986.
The game appeared to turn in the Americans’ favor in the second half until a long ball over the U.S. defense forced Menlo Park’s Tierna Davidson into a chaotic clearance inches inside the left corner of the penalty area.
Davidson, who played at Stanford, got her legs tangled with Canadian striker Deanne Rose in a situation that was difficult to fault the defender. A video review led referee Kateryna Monzul to award Canada the penalty. It was the Canadians’ first shot on goal at that point.
Fleming, a former UCLA star, struck her attempt hard to the right side of the net just beyond the outreached hands of U.S. goalkeeper Arianna Franch.
“I was just trusting myself in that moment to put it in the spot,” Fleming said. “I knew I could do it. And did what I had done before.”
The triumph for eighth-ranked Canada was not surprising considering the way the Americans have played at the Tokyo Games. They never looked sharp enough to achieve the goal of becoming the first country to win a World Cup and Olympic title back-to-back.
But Canadian coach Bev Priestman did not expect an easy victory Monday.
“The U.S. is the U.S.,” she said. “They are not going to roll over. You can talk about them not having the best tournament, but they have winners on that team who would turn up and do anything to get to the final.”
The American determination began to show itself in the 60th minute after U.S. coach Vlatko Andonovski sent in star players Carli Lloyd, Christen Press and Megan Rapinoe. Lloyd sent a screamer for the United States’ first shot on goal in the 65th minute. Canada goalkeeper Stephanie Labbe made a leaping save and then had to stop headers by Julie Ertz and Lindsey Horan minutes later.
The United States outshot Canada 17-5 and had an advantage with possession. But it came down to the one frenetic tackle and the Canadian penalty.
Andonovski couldn’t explain his team’s struggles in Tokyo, saying he and his staff would need to “dig a little deeper and find out what is it that didn’t go the way we want it or what is it that caused us to look the way we did.”
Rapinoe doesn’t need a post-tournament review to know what had gone sideways.
The 2019 world player of the year blamed the players for not getting it done. She said all the preparation, tactics and analysis cannot replace player performance.
She rated herself and teammates as subpar other than starting goalkeeper Alyssa Naeher, who had to depart the game in the 30th minute after landing awkwardly as a ball came into the area.
Naeher, the star of the Americans’ quarterfinal shootout victory over the Netherlands, suffered a right knee injury.
But Canada struggled to challenge Naeher’s replacement. Franch, who had made just four appearances with the U.S. team, faced only two shots on target.
In the end, it came down to Canada stopping the United States from scoring for the third time in five games.
Has Canada finally caught up with the United States in women’s soccer?
“We’ve always been there,” Priestman said of her team. “We were there, we just had to believe we were there.”
Now the Americans have to believe they can return to the top.