© Reuters. Soccer Soccer – FIFA Girls’s World Cup Australia and New Zealand 2023 – Spherical of 16 – Sweden v United States – Melbourne Rectangular Stadium, Melbourne, Australia – August 6, 2023 Sweden’s Lina Hurtig celebrates with teammates after scoring the winnin
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By Ian Ransom
MELBOURNE (Reuters) – Sweden beat the US 5-4 on penalties to sentence the defending champions to their earliest Girls’s World Cup exit on Sunday after the groups have been locked at 0-0 on the finish of additional time.
Lina Hurtig struck the successful spot-kick at Melbourne Rectangular Stadium to cap a madcap shootout within the spherical of 16 conflict, although U.S. goalkeeper Alyssa Naeher parried the ball on the road and the consequence wanted to be confirmed by VAR.
Sweden head right into a quarter-final towards Japan in Auckland on Friday but it surely was the primary exit earlier than the semi-finals in 9 World Cups for the Individuals, who have been bidding for an unprecedented third consecutive title.
Gloomy U.S. coach Vlatko Andonovski was not satisfied Hurtig’s spot-kick had crossed the road
“It’s a tricky second, a second the place it is laborious to undergo,” he advised a press convention.
“You have got hopes that the ball didn’t cross the road.
“That simply reveals how merciless this recreation will be.”
Sweden’s Magda Eriksson stated her crew had proven coronary heart if not their finest recreation, having been dominated for a lot of the match.
“We’re so comfortable proper now,” she stated in a radio interview.
“I do not understand how we managed to remain on this recreation.
“We did not play our greatest recreation, however indirectly we confirmed we’re hard-headed, we confirmed coronary heart, we by no means quit. We took it to further time, we took it to penalties and we managed to win.”
Younger U.S. ahead Sophia Smith was left shattered, having had an opportunity to win the match for the four-times champions when she stepped up within the penalty shootout solely to blast the ball over the bar.
She was not the primary participant in her crew to overlook.
The talismanic Megan Rapinoe, famend for her peerless document in shootouts, thumped the U.S.’s fourth kick over the bar after Sweden’s Nathalie Bjorn additionally fired excessive.
NINE MONTHS
Andonovski stated the U.S. had been practising penalties for the final 9 months.
“I do know we have been criticised for the best way we performed … I believe we got here out at the moment and have been all concerning the grit, the resilience,” he stated.
Goalkeeper Zecira Musovic was Sweden’s hero, having made 11 saves earlier than the shootout to maintain them within the match.
Usually starved of possession, the Swedes didn’t have a shot on purpose till the eighty fifth minute when substitute Sofia Jakobsson danced into the realm, solely to shoot straight at Naeher.
Naeher saved Rebecka Blomqvist’s fourth shot for the Swedes within the shootout however Smith’s miss stored the Scandinavians in it.
After Naeher and Magdalena Eriksson transformed their spot-kicks, Kelley Ohara despatched her effort pinging off the fitting publish, permitting Hurtig to step up and ship the champions out of the match.
The U.S. will surprise how the match needed to go to a shootout, having dominated the play and unleashed 21 pictures, together with 11 on track.
Trinity Rodman proved a menace down the fitting wing early, testing the Swedish keeper twice within the first half-hour.
Lindsey Horan thumped a header towards the bar and Musovic denied her once more with a low dive when the U.S. skipper fired a deflected cross on the far publish.
Musovic produced one other fantastic save to cease an Alex Morgan header and see the Swedes into further time, then foiled a Lynn Williams shot within the first interval.
Rapinoe got here on to interchange Morgan in further time however couldn’t conjure the magic that helped the U.S. to back-to-back World Cup triumphs in Canada in 2015 and France 4 years in the past.
