Thank you, Megan. Credit: Marc Atkins/Getty Images
Thank you, Megan.
Thank you, Megan. Marc Atkins/Getty Images

My jaw hurts from clenching my teeth for the entirety of the Spain vs. U.S. game.

It was the fourth game of the round of 16, the first knock-out round, in the 2019 Women’s World Cup. The U.S. was expected to easily best Spain, a young team who has only recently started investing in women’s soccer, and sail into Friday’s quarterfinal match against France.

That wasn’t the case.

Though the U.S. won 2-1, neither of their goals was scored during open play; both were from penalty kicks. Megan Rapinoe, the Seattle hometown hero, slotted both penalties into the left side of the net. Rapinoe had an incredible game, winning tackles, creating plays, and never tiring. If only the rest of the team had done the same.

The game started with a mistake from one of the U.S’s outside defenders. Spain fired off a threatening shot on goal within the first two minutes. There was no goal made, but it made a statement: the U.S. team was going to have to fight to keep their heads above water.

Luckily, right after that play, Tobin Heath was fouled in the box by the Spanish defense. Rapinoe scored her first goal:

That set the tone for the game: Penalty, penalty, penalty. I’m all for laissez-faire refereeing—let the kids play and all that—but damn. The ref really wasn’t calling fouls. There were dangerous slide tackles with the cleats facing up (a big no-no), Heath got straight up clotheslined by an illegal screen, Alex Morgan was getting hacked and tackled left and right (was that why she seemed to have a non-existent game or what???), and this happened:

Spain tied the match off of a U.S. defensive error. It was a sloppy pass by goalie Alyssa Naeher to her defender, who was being guarded by a Spanish player, Jennifer Hermoso, who ripped it into the net above Naeher’s hands. It was Spain’s first goal in the last two games of the tournament. I ruminated on U.S. defensive breakdowns here.

It was 91 degrees in Reims where the match was held. The players were flushed and tired. The game felt simultaneously urgent and exhausted. The U.S. had possession 60 percent of the game but, from my spectator’s perch (read: in bed, on my laptop), it felt evenly matched. A foul against Rose Lavelle in the second half gave the U.S. the lead. Here’s that penalty:

Really, our offense felt stifled. There were no real scoring opportunities from a team stacked with strikers. Morgan, the team’s star player, could have had the same performance she had on the field today parked on the bench. The explanation for that is that she was getting fouled over and over. That’s shitty, yeah, but is harassing the star forward all it takes to shut down the U.S. team?

It wasn’t an encouraging showing as the team heads into Friday’s match against France, who’ll be playing with a home team advantage and stands as the strongest competitor against the U.S. The most anticipated game of the tournament will be decided in the quarterfinal. The winner will likely coast through the semi-final and final matches.

If the U.S. plays like they did today, they’ll hand France the World Cup the same way they handed Spain its only goal today.

So far, the U.S. is the only non-European team to make it into the quarterfinal round. Canada plays Sweden Monday at noon.

Nathalie Graham covers anything she finds fun, weird, or interesting. You can find a lot of that in her column, Play Date. Her work has also appeared around town in The Seattle Times, GeekWire, and the...