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Women’s World Cup: Canada Ties Nigeria, but Laments Missed Penalty

https://www.nytimes.com/explain/2023/07/20/sports/womens-world-cup-scores
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WOMEN’S WORLD CUP

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 * U.S. Generation Gap
 * Schedule
 * Standings
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WOMEN’S WORLD CUP: CANADA TIES NIGERIA, BUT LAMENTS MISSED PENALTY

Switzerland beat the Philippines, which was making its World Cup debut. Spain, a
top European contender, easily beat Costa Rica.

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 1.  Switzerland v. Philippines
     Alessandra Tarantino/Associated Press
 2.  Spain v. Costa Rica
     Catherine Ivill/Getty Images
 3.  Wellington, New Zealand
     Catherine Ivill/Getty Images
 4.  Canada v. Nigeria
     Morgan Hancock/EPA, via Shutterstock
 5.  Canada v. Nigeria
     Izhar Khan/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
 6.  Canada v. Nigeria
     Hannah Mckay/Reuters
 7.  Switzerland v. Philippines
     Lars Baron/Getty Images
 8.  Switzerland v. Philippines
     Lars Baron/Getty Images
 9.  Team U.S.A.
     Abbie Parr/Associated Press
 10. Team England
     Dan Peled/Reuters
 11. Team Denmark
     Luisa Gonzalez/Reuters
 12. Manhattan
     Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

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By The New York Times

Published July 20, 2023Updated July 21, 2023

3

Spain

Group C

Full Time

0

Costa Rica

Valeria del Campo (21’, own goal)

Aitana Bonmati (23’)

Esther Gonzalez (27’)





0

Philippines

Group A

Full Time

2

Switzerland



Ramona Bachmann (45’, penalty)

Seraina Piubel (64’)



0

Nigeria

Group B

Full Time

0

Canada

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CANADA, NIGERIA AND A DRAW THAT IS NOT QUITE SATISFYING (EXCEPT TO AUSTRALIA).


Canada’s Julia Grosso, right, and Nigeria’s Michelle Alozie competed to a
scoreless draw in Melbourne, Australia.Credit...Robert Cianflone/Getty Images


Not much of what led to this World Cup has gone the way Canada’s women’s team
might have wanted. Fights over funding and paychecks and support. A key player
lost to injury. A curious absence of match preparation. Nigeria, embroiled in
its own bitter pay dispute, probably would say the same.

Both teams had declared they were setting those things aside this week now that
the games were here. “Forget about the distractions, and just focus on the
game,” the Nigeria striker Asisat Oshoala, who plays for Barcelona, said earlier
this week. But it was perhaps fitting, or at the very least unsurprising, that
the first steps of the tournament — a scoreless draw on Friday in Melbourne —
will leave neither team entirely satisfied.

Canada, which saw its soccer matriarch Christine Sinclair fail to convert a
second-half penalty kick, will leave believing it could have, and maybe should
have, won. Nigeria, which piled up fouls (16) but not shots on goal (1), will be
wondering how it will adapt to the loss of midfielder Deborah Ajibola Abiodun;
she was sent off late in the second half for a foul that was upgraded to red
from yellow after a video review.

The emotions of the moments after the final whistle suggested both teams were
processing the result differently. Nigeria’s goalkeeper, Chiamaka Nnadozie, who
had saved the penalty, dropped to her knees as if celebrating a memorable
victory. Sinclair, substituted for only the second time in six World Cups, sat
glumly on the bench as Canada Coach Bev Priestman whispered encouragement in her
ear, perhaps in vain.

“Christine Sinclair has scored many, many, many goals for this country and I’m
sure the fans, the team and everyone can forgive missing a penalty kick,”
Priestman said.

About the only winner on Friday, it seemed, was Australia. Its victory over
Ireland on Thursday, combined with the Canada-Nigeria draw, left it atop Group
B. Given that it is dealing with its own crisis of confidence after losing Sam
Kerr, that will be a comfort. For now.

— Andrew Das


SURE THING? EVERY GAME HAS PRODUCED AT LEAST ONE PENALTY KICK.


Switzerland forward Ramona Bachmann scored on a penalty kick in her team’s
opening match against the Philippines. Others have been less successful in this
tournament.Credit...Sanka Vidanagama/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images


Five games, five penalties.

If the World Cup’s opening games have been slow to deliver in one statistic —
until Spain started to pummel Costa Rica, the tournament had produced only two
goals from open play — it is overproducing in another: penalty kicks.

Each of the first five games of the tournament has produced one. A handball by
Norway. A shove by Ireland. A trip by Nigeria. A foul by Costa Rica. A very
literal interpretation of the rules in Philippines-Switzerland.



Video assistant referees have played a role in several of the calls. The ball
that hit the hand of Tuva Hansen of Norway late in its loss to New Zealand, for
example, was spotted by the V.A.R. and relayed to the on-field referee, who had
not whistled a penalty in real time. The penalties awarded to Canada and
Switzerland, too, were only confirmed after officials took a second look.

Being awarded a penalty and scoring a penalty are two distinct actions, however.
Only two of the five called were then converted into goals.

The upside of all those early trips to the spot? One of them has produced the
play of the tournament so far: Chiamaka Nnadozie’s diving save of Christine
Sinclair’s attempt in Nigeria’s draw with Canada in Melbourne.


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EVEN WITH HIGH EXPECTATIONS, THE AMERICANS FACE SOME UNCERTAINTY GOING INTO
THEIR DEBUT.


Co-captain Lindsey Horan, left, and Coach Vlatko Andonovski know that there are
high expectations on the United States going into their game.Credit...Abbie
Parr/Associated Press


On the eve of his country’s meeting with the United States, the reporter from
Vietnam got right to the point.

“Are you going to crush us like you did Thailand four years ago?” he asked Coach
Vlatko Andonovski and the U.S. co-captain Lindsey Horan.

Andonovski didn’t give a direct answer. Decorum meant he couldn’t say what many
have been thinking (that the U.S. team might, in fact, crush Vietnam). But
Andonovski also didn’t know the answer.

Not even he knows how a new combination of U.S. players will work together. Or
how Vietnam, in its first World Cup, will fare in its first game, scheduled for
Saturday morning in New Zealand at a time that Americans will be able to watch
on Friday night (at 9 p.m. Eastern).

What he and Horan do know, however, is that the world of women’s soccer has
changed since the United States thumped Thailand, 13-0, at the last World Cup.

“There are not easy games that before you were just like, oh, this is going to
be 6, 7-0 or whatever,” Horan said. “it’s not how it is anymore.”

Fears that an expanded tournament, now at 32 teams, might usher in more routs
haven’t come true, at least not yet. The first two World Cup debutantes to take
the field, Ireland and the Philippines, both lost, but in close games.

But the U.S. team isn’t the same as it was four years ago, either. Horan was
reminded of that on Thursday morning when Becky Sauerbrunn, the team’s longtime
captain who is out with an injury, texted her to wish her good luck. Sauerbrunn,
Horan said, told her to embrace her new role as captain.

Horan and her co-captain, Alex Morgan, lead a team that includes 14 World Cup
rookies of its own. It is their job to show the newcomers how to win games under
pressure, to live up to the expectations of a dynasty and to do it with the
whole world watching.

Andonovski said Thursday that he would have the full roster at his disposal.
Rose Lavelle and Megan Rapinoe, who have been nursing injuries, might see
limited minutes. Julie Ertz, who has rushed back after having her first child
last year, is “100 percent.” It is very important, he said, for him to see the
team connect on the field after it hasn’t played together, with all of its
parts, in a while.

“Regardless of what happened in the past, it is important for us to win this
tournament, to do well in this tournament,” he said.

He also didn’t give a direct answer to another question from a different
reporter from Vietnam, likely because it addressed a subject he doesn’t want to
think about.

That reporter asked, “What will happen if U.S.A. cannot win against Vietnam?”

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GETTING DIZZY KEEPING TRACK OF TIME ZONES? WE’RE HERE TO HELP.

One of the toughest parts of watching the Women’s World Cup this year may be
keeping track of all the time zones in Australia and New Zealand where the
matches are being played.

That will require lots of math and, in some cases, middle-of-the-night alarms.
So let us help!

Our friends at The Upshot have created a handy tool that allows you to see the
World Cup schedule easily, accurately and in the time zone of your device’s
location.





A.C.L. INJURIES ARE KEEPING SOME BIG STARS OFF THE WOMEN’S WORLD CUP STAGE.


Credit...Madison Ketcham


The third time around, Megan Rapinoe’s reaction to a potentially career-ending
knee injury went no further than an eye roll. She had torn her anterior cruciate
ligament. She could reel off the recovery schedule from the top of her head. She
could see, crystal clear, the next nine to 12 months spooling out in front of
her.

The surgery, the painstaking rehab, the grueling weeks in the gym, the anxious
first steps on the turf, the slow journey back to what she had once been. As she
considered it in 2015, she felt something closer to exasperation than to
despair. “I was like, ‘I don’t have time for this,’” she said.

The first time had been different. She had torn the anterior cruciate ligament
in her left knee at age 21, when she was a breakout star in her sophomore year
at the University of Portland. At that time, she felt what she called “the fear”
— the worry that it might all be over before it had begun.

Over the last year or so, that fear — and the searching questions it prompts —
has coursed through women’s soccer. The sport has at times seemed to be in the
grip of an epidemic of A.C.L. injuries, one so widespread that at one point it
had sidelined a quarter of the nominees for last year’s Ballon d’Or.

Vivianne Miedema of the Netherlands, whose knee injury will keep her out of the
World Cup, pointed out that, this season alone, almost 60 players in Europe’s
five major leagues had torn their A.C.L.s. “It is ridiculous,” she said earlier
this year. “Something needs to be done.”

Working out precisely what that might be, though, is more complicated than
anyone would like.


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THIS U.S. WORLD CUP TEAM IS ONE FOR THE AGES. ALL THE AGES.


Credit...Marlena Sloss for The New York Times


Sports are often about gaps: talent gaps, experience gaps, compensation gaps.
And in the weeks and months before the Women’s World Cup that began on Thursday
in Australia and New Zealand, the players on the U.S. national women’s soccer
team have found an unlikely bond in jokes, jabs and stories related to what may
be their most notable feature: a generation gap.

The team’s oldest player is Megan Rapinoe, 38, the iconic athlete who recently
announced that she would retire after this World Cup and the end of her current
professional season. The youngest is Alyssa Thompson, who is 18, just graduated
high school and still lives with her parents. At least three of Thompson’s
teammates — Morgan, Crystal Dunn and Julie Ertz — have children of their own.

Thompson said that her older teammates sometimes play music that she doesn’t
recognize, but that the different age groups find a middle ground with Cardi B.
Sophia Smith, a 22-year-old forward, said she does recognize the music, though
by genre, not by artist. “They sound like what my parents listen to,” she said.

Smith admitted last month that she never has used a CD player and that she
refuses to watch TV shows or movies if the video quality is “grainy.” One
exception: videos of the 1999 Women’s World Cup final, a historic victory by the
United States that spurred rapid growth of women’s soccer in America. Unlike
some of her teammates, Smith has no memory of watching that team play — the
final was played more than a year before she was born.



— Juliet Macur

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