Ray Acevedo-USA TODAY Sports activities
Nothing will ever erase the recollections of the 2023 World Cup elimination the US ladies’s nationwide group skilled on Aug. 6 in Melbourne, Australia. The missed penalty kicks, and the next save that wasn’t — “misplaced by a millimeter,” as an incredulous U.S. goalkeeper Alyssa Naeher repeated to cameras and microphones moments later beneath the stadium — can’t be rewritten.
“That’s a really painful reminiscence and that can sit, in all probability, with all of us for a very very long time,” U.S. interim coach Twila Kilgore, who was an assistant at that 2023 World Cup, mentioned on Wednesday after her group’s development over Canada to the 2024 Concacaf W Gold Cup closing.
Reminders of the U.S.’ Spherical-of-16 elimination to Sweden, marking the group’s worst end in a significant event, had come dashing again on Wednesday. Right here once more, on an “unplayable” rain-soaked discipline in San Diego for the Concacaf W Gold Cup semifinals, was a shootout with acquainted protagonists.
Naeher was in purpose once more. Ahead Sophia Smith, who scored the go-ahead purpose for the U.S. in further time on Wednesday, stepped as much as take the primary penalty for the People. Seven months earlier — to the day — Smith missed a penalty that might have clinched development to the quarterfinals for the US. After Wednesday’s shootout victory over Canada, Smith was seen sobbing on the sector.
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