After physically dominating its first four foes in the fourth Women's World Cup, the U.S. women couldn't solve Germany, which exposed the Americans' deficiencies in a stirring semifinal.
IT WAS 1995 ALL OVER AGAIN. A corner kick, early in the semifinal, against the one team – the only team – that could have knocked off the reigning champs, and the reigning champs were left chasing the score for 60, 70, almost 80 minutes.
''It's déj&aagrave; vu,'' sighed U.S. captain Julie Foudy after Germany dashed the United States' World Cup dream, riding Kerstin Garefrekes' 15th-minute header to victory in a semifinal that felt so much more like a final. ''I feel like I'm in 'Groundhog Day.'''
It was 1995; at least it sure seemed so. Garefrekes was Ann Kristin Aarones, the towering Norwegian forward, whose 10th-minute header eight summers earlier – from a corner kick, at the near post – pierced the Americans' sense of invincibility and herded them toward their first defeat in a Women's World Cup encounter.
Their second World Cup loss bore similar markings. Near-post corner kick, tallest player on the field, and no matter what the Americans could muster afterward, it wasn't enough.
Two stoppage-time goals, by Maren Meinert and Birgit Prinz, with the U.S. backline pared to three defenders and everybody pushed up in search of a tying goal, completed the 3-0 scoreline in a one-goal game that, both sides agreed, could have gone either way.
The action, most of it anyway, was carried by the home team, which thrilled the packed house at PGE Park in Portland, Ore., with repeated forays into Germany's box, one after the other, over and over again. A little luck here, a more fortuitous touch there, a penalty-kick call in the 70th minute – when hometown girl Tiffeny Milbrett was spilled by German goalkeeper Silke Rottenberg – and it's even. Another, and it's the Yanks who were meeting Sweden for the World Cup crown seven days later.
''We couldn't finish, we couldn't put away our chances …,'' Foudy said when it was done. ''But I feel proud of the way we played. We battled, we got numbers forward – it wasn't like we didn't create chances. Sometimes you get a little bit unlucky and things don't bounce your way.''
A lot of it was luck, to listen in on the U.S. players' thoughts, along with a phenomenal performance by Rottenberg, who gave a clinic on winning crosses and cutting off throughballs, and a German backline – especially Ariane Hingst and Kerstin Stegemann – that rendered harmless nearly every U.S. thrust.
FULL PANIC MODE. But there was far more than luck at work here.
The Germans exhibited superior technical ability and tactical savvy; a supreme organizational sense, particularly at the back; confidence that their approach, no matter how it appeared to the uninitiated, was working perfectly; and patience that seemed beyond the U.S. women, who were in full panic mode when the second half was still quite young.
With Meinert a wizard at the center of an attack that made far more of its far more limited opportunities than did the Americans, Germany was in command, really, from start to finish. If it looked otherwise, and it often did, let that be the first of many lessons this showdown will provide the U.S. women's program: There's always more going on than what's at the surface.
For so many years, the U.S. women conquered with physical play and a do-anything mentality that awed its rivals and provided a foundation for World Cup titles in 1991 and 1999 and Olympic gold in 1996. The navel-gazing that followed the loss to Norway in '95 made it clear that the Americans needed to be stronger, tactically and technically, to keep pace with the Norways and Chinas and Germanys of the women's soccer world. Knowing and doing don't necessarily go hand in hand.
April Heinrichs, one of the U.S. stars in '91 and an assistant to Tony DiCicco four years later, understood this better than most; her tenure as coach, beginning in early 2000, has been focused on building better tactical awareness, on bringing more technically gifted players onto the roster, on providing the know-how to play within different systems and in different positions and be capable of switching systems or positions at will.
The product was a versatile, talented squad, perhaps the best women's team the United States has ever fielded, but the showdown with Germany demonstrated how much further the Americans still need to travel.
LACK OF CULTURE. ''That's something we've been saying for 17 years,'' said Heinrichs, a former U.S. captain who has been part of the program since 1986. ''We have some very smooth and very technical players, but as a country, one of our weaknesses is still the technical aspect of the game. It's not from a lack of opportunity, it's from a lack of culture. We still have players who will solve problems physically.''
That was the U.S. approach in this World Cup; it's how the Yanks knocked out foes in the ''Group of Death'' and in a rather simple triumph over an ordinary Norway team in the quarterfinals. The tenor was set at the start of the opener against Sweden, when, just 13 minutes in, celebrated striker Hanna Ljungberg was freed to the right of the U.S. box. Goalkeeper Briana Scurry, in a statement-making play, raced from her box, upended the diminutive Ljungberg, flipping her high into the air and down on her head. It was worthy of a yellow card, Chinese referee Zhang Dongqing decided, although others thought red would have been fairer.
''You know, I'm not messing around right now,'' Scurry said afterward. ''I think I got her pretty good, and I think she was a little gun-shy after that. They probably didn't feel like playing after that.''
The collision definitely sapped the life from Ljungberg, who winced the next time Scurry came close, and the Swedes. Nobody challenged the U.S. women after that, not really, until the semifinals.
VIKING LINEUP. Utilizing what Foudy called their ''viking'' lineup – big Abby Wambach and Cindy Parlow up front, big Shannon Boxx anchoring the midfield – the Yanks just overpowered everything in their way. But when their physical, aerial approach didn't work against the Germans, they just tried again. And again. And again. Push the ball wide, cross in for Wambach – it worked so well against the Swedes, Nigerians, Koreans and Norwegians, but Hingst and fellow central defender Sandra Minnert wouldn't give an inch, Rottenberg swallowed up everything within her reach, and attempts to penetrate on the ground – increasingly an option after Aly Wagner came on in the second half – got nowhere.
''Their backline, I felt they were always in the way,'' Wambach noted. ''Somebody was always there. Maybe that's a problem with our organization in the box offensively, but I think it's also a tribute to how well organized they were in the box. I think at times they did get stretched in the back, but we weren't able to capitalize in those moments.''
Mia Hamm and Kristine Lilly, who had started the World Cup with incredible performances – both against Sweden, Hamm also against Nigeria – were disappointments. Lilly never seemed to find her touch, although she had one sweet shot in the first half that Rottenberg dived to secure.
TURNING OFF THE FAUCET. Hamm, freed to do as she wished by Wambach's (and Parlow's) physical play up top, was unstoppable at the start of the tournament, setting up all three goals in the 3-1 triumph over Sweden in a Group A opener in Washington, then scoring twice and assisting two more in the 5-0 romp over Nigeria that followed in Philadelphia.
Heinrichs noted the day before the clash with North Korea in Columbus that ''if you take Mia out, you run the risk of turning the faucet off,'' then left her on the bench – with fianc' Nomar Garciaparra, on a day off from the playoff-bound Boston Red Sox, watching from the stands – during a 3-0 victory that was fueled by a pair of Catherine Reddick goals.
Heinrichs' reasoning made sense. The Americans faced a fierce schedule, in terms of both competition and travel, and depth was an obvious team strength. DiCicco had regretted pulling Hamm from the final group match in '99; it contributed, he reckoned, to her lack of sharpness the rest of the tournament.
The effect was similar this time. Hamm was off her game in the quarterfinal, even missing a penalty kick with a horrendous shot that gave Bente Nordby no challenge.
Hamm's struggles might have escaped notice because Wambach was so good, maybe the best single-game performance by any player in this tournament, certainly on par with Rottenberg's against the Americans and Lilly's, as playmaker, against the Swedes.
Hamm offered less against the Germans, nearly disappearing as an attacking force after mishandling a 1-v-1 chance in the 34th minute against Rottenberg, who came off her line and scooped the ball off Hamm's foot. Given space to maneuver, on more than one occasion, with the ball at the corner of the 18, Hamm chose not to penetrate, instead heading for the corner to serve in another cross. The usual result was a Rottenberg catch, a Hingst header, or the ball floating over the goal.
''At times,'' Hamm admitted, ''I don't think the quality of serves was what it needed to be.''
ATTACKING LIMITATIONS. The limitations of the U.S. attack had been made clear in the Norway game, where – with Hamm and Lilly off form – the only option seemed to be air balls for Wambach. Never did it seem the Americans would add to their first goal, a 24th-minute header by Wambach from a Catherine Reddick free kick. It was the 10th of 12 U.S. goals scored in the first four games from set plays, a statistic that pleased Heinrichs, who had worked 18 months to correct one of the Americans' most glaring weaknesses. That they couldn't score from the run of play – aside from the gorgeous first goal, by Lilly, against Sweden and Wambach's finish of Lilly's cross against Nigeria – seems another weakness.
Norway never appeared close to scoring, although Scurry's quick reaction in stoppage time settled that after a little Anita Rapp flick had gotten through. With Hege Riise still not at full strength following a knee injury sustained during the WUSA season, the Norwegians had nobody to create for Dagny Mellgren nor Marianne Pettersen, and the U.S. defense stymied them at every turn.
The Americans were superb defensively, all over the field, throughout the tournament, especially Hamm, Wambach, Parlow, Lilly, Boxx and the entire backline.
Boxx, who didn't make her first U.S. appearance until she'd been named to the roster, was a revelation as the holding midfielder, although she was clearly out of sorts against the Germans. The rear quartet easily overcame the loss of central defender Brandi Chastain to a broken foot in the first half against Sweden, primarily through Joy Fawcett's leadership and tenacity and Reddick's quick acclimation to the game's biggest stage.
The backline was stretched by the Germans, especially Meinert and Bettina Wiegmann sending balls for Prinz, wingers Garefrekes and Pia Wunderlich and right back Stegemann, but it wasn't defense that cost the Americans when it mattered most.
QUESTIONABLE MOVES. It was the inability to vary their attack, to be less direct, to display more patience.
It was technical deficiencies in the German box. It was questionable substitutions. (Why take out Parlow, who was effective? Why not bring on Shannon MacMillan for Boxx, who wasn't, and move Foudy to defensive midfielder?)
It was a lack of patience.
Heinrichs said she would have loved to be able to call a timeout around the 70th minute, to prescribe trying different modes.
''The thing I look at,'' Foudy said, ''in the second half, we went into a style that was what you go into in the last 10 minutes of the game. We launched balls into the box. I look back at that and I think I should have pulled the team together and said, 'Patience. Let's build this, play soccer. Let's not go fly everything into Abby and try to run off of it because Rottenberg is cleaning up everything we're trying to do. Let's just keep playing, with a little more patience.''
by Soccer America Senior Editor Scott French