The US women’s soccer team appear to have Hollywood on the brain. Their World Cup victories over Brazil (quarterfinals) and France (today’s semifinals) have followed almost identical Die Hard scripts. Each time they got a one goal lead early, they got outplayed and outscored for almost the rest of the game, and then, just when we had about lost hope, they got back on their feet and saved the day.
Although attention will get showered on the goal scorers, there are lots of heroes on this team. Although France played brilliantly, controlled the middle of the field, controlled the ball, and took 25 shots (8 on goal) and 10 corner kicks, the US defense made sure that almost all of the French shots were taken from long range. On the flip side, the number of unforced US turnovers was so large that it seemed to put scoring out of the question (perhaps tired legs from the Brazil marathon had something to do with that?), but score they did: 3 times on 11 shots.
Oh Ladies! You’ve got heart, and you can be sure that no matter what happens in the Cup final, we’ll be cheering for all 90 minutes of the game. The movie ain’t over until they roll the credits.
7-18-11 update: Once again the outcome was up in the air all the way to the final penalty kick shootout. 120 minutes of nailbiting. But Japan won the PKs. And you have to be ok with that.
