Final Four With Flaws
This, then, is the Women’s World Cup final four, exactly the way it was ordered up when the pairings were first drawn five months ago:
Brazil versus the United States at Stanford Stadium, just as everyone expected.
China versus Norway at Foxboro Stadium, to the surprise of no one.
There never was a doubt--and please ignore the used tubes of smelling salts and the empty vials of nerve medicine left in the wake of USA 3, Germany 2 Thursday night.
(And to those of you who tried to watch the U.S.-Germany white-knuckler on television: It’s all right to crawl back from behind the living room sofa now.)
The quarterfinal round was a learning experience for each of the final four, with Lesson One being: Nobody is as good as they were presumed to be this time last week.
The Americans, prohibitive pre-tournament favorites to win the World Cup on their home turf, have defensive weaknesses impossible to overlook, unless you watched Thursday’s game with both hands over your eyes. Many U.S. supporters, no doubt, did precisely that during the second half, when Team USA had to rally from a 2-1 deficit before nervously fending off wave after wave of German assaults during the final 15 minutes.
China, the tournament’s consensus second favorite, can move up the field by stringing delicate touch passes together, but can’t finish. The Chinese played 90 minutes of keepaway against Russia in San Jose and outshot the Russians, 24 to 2--and had to scrape for a 2-0 victory.
Norway, the 1995 Women’s World Cup champion, has injury problems on defense and creativity problems up front. How much longer can the Norwegians subsist on a diet of long balls flogged up field to Marianne Pettersen on the blind hope that she’ll continue to chest them down and slam them home now that everyone is keen to their act?
Brazil, the fast-tracking up-and-comer of women’s international soccer, has shown it can pour in the goals as quickly as Ronaldo and Co., but the Brazilian women can’t hold a lead to save their surnames. Up 3-0 at halftime Thursday, the Brazilians conceded three unanswered goals to Nigeria in the second half and were taken into overtime, rescued only by Sissi’s remarkable 22-yard free kick in the 104th minute.
In their last two matches, the Brazilians have yielded half a dozen goals--three apiece to Germany and Nigeria--and, somehow, are still around to hold news conferences to talk about it.
This is the final four everyone expected--and, yet, it isn’t.
What happened to the United States’ purported invincibility?
Gone, it appears, thanks to a jittery backline that can’t seem to go a half without forcing goalkeeper Briana Scurry to jump out of her boots two or three times to make scrambling desperation saves. Balls cleared weakly into the middle of the U.S. penalty area, headers popped up like check-swing foul tips, back-passes to the keeper that wind up in the back of the net--Coach Tony DiCicco is getting all the cardiovascular work he needs, and he never moves from the U.S. bench.
The U.S. defense is making a strong case for Scurry as World Cup most valuable player--the Americans would be out of the tournament already without her--but, given her druthers, Scurry could do without the portfolio assistance.
“We’re going to have to buckle down defensively from here on out,” Scurry said after the United States weathered a fifth-minute own goal by defender Brandi Chastain against Germany.
Scurry said the string of defensive gaffes “concerns me. Now I know the other teams have been creating opportunities for themselves and it’s never an easy thing to go through a tournament like this without making mistakes. But we’ve got to stop it.”
Asked about the weird defensive lapses that have plagued the United States since its opener, Chastain admitted she was “thinking about that at halftime. I was expecting all the questions from the media--’What does it mean?’ ‘Why does it happen?’
“The answer I came up with was this: This is the World Cup. These things can happen here, because so much is at stake and the stage is so large. You don’t expect it to happen to the world’s best players, but it does. Fifty thousand fans watching you, all the noise, the electricity in the crowd--all of that contributes to it.”
China, too, has looked more vulnerable than advertised. The Chinese possession passing game can be a beautiful thing to behold, but against tall, physical defenders--such as ones who play for Australia and Russia--it can be so much finesse signifying nothing. Despite spending 80% of its quarterfinal in the Russian half of the field, China had great difficulty unlocking the Russia defense--spraying shots all over the yard before Pu Wei capitalized on a defensive turnover late in the first half for the long-delayed icebreaker.
The Chinese missed 18 shots against Australia and 22 shots against Russia, moving Coach Ma Yuanan to concede, “This is one part of the game we need to improve on in the future.”
Gao Hong has been touted as the best female goalkeeper in the world, but who can tell from this tournament? Gao has hardly been tested in four games and certainly not against Russia, when she went 90 minutes before making her first and only save of the match. She could have spent the entire game with her arms behind her back, staring at the Chinese bench: “Look, Ma, no hands!”
Are Gao and her Chinese teammates ready for the kind of challenge promised by Norway? The Norwegians have a Women’s World Cup winning streak of 10 consecutive games, and play with the kind of physicality that has given China trouble in the past.
Norway’s problem is its own predictability--too often lapsing into a one-dimensional long-ball strategy that could play into China’s hands. The Chinese defense has proven adept at ganging up on a team’s chief attacker--Pettersen, in Norway’s case--and marking her out of the game.
It is probably premature to expect Brazil to capture the trophy this time around, but look out for 2003. Brazil’s young offensive firepower is formidable already, and, as U.S. midfielder Julie Foudy notes, “Once Brazil gets behind women’s soccer, the rest of the world can forget about it.”
That time is not quite here; the Brazilian defense lacks the skill and the savvy to cope with the slicing and dicing of Mia Hamm, Tiffeny Milbrett and Kristine Lilly. Case in point: Thursday’s back-pedaling second half against Nigeria--from 3-0 up to 3-3 and pray for a golden goal.
“During that game I turned into an old man,” Brazil Coach Wilson de Oliveira Rica quipped. “But after the game, I became a young man again.”
It is a flawed four that finally finds itself in the semifinals. Dinged and dented, they arrived right on schedule, only at something less than mint condition, moving forward while scaring the daylights out of their supporters.
“Got to keep people glued to the set,” Scurry says with a weary smile. “Got to keep them on the edge of their seats.”
