US Women's National Team deserve way more credit then they get

In a country where soccer is struggling as it is, it is tough being a soccer fan in the United States. Major League Soccer is expanding and the US Men's National Team (although still not an international soccer power) is growing into a powerful team in the CONCACAF region beating Mexico in a stunning victory at the 2007 Gold Cup. With energetic young players, this will definitely change. In this blog post, however, I am not going to talk about the Men's Soccer team, but rather an American soccer team that has gone entirely un-noticed but is believe it or not a soccer powerhouse (and they don't even have league! or at least not one that I know of).




As a matter of fact, the Women's National Soccer team is the #1 team in the most recent FIFA rankings and have not fallen past #2 since FIFA first started the ranking system for women's soccer in August 2003. Ever since then they have fought against their rival Germany for the #1 spot. I don't always agree with these rankings but being that I'm not too familiar with women's soccer, I won't take anything against FIFA. However, I don know that the American women really do deserve more credit. Their biggest accomplishment was winning the very first Women's World Cup in 1991 which took place in China. After this they progressed as follows:

Sweden 1995: 3rd place
USA 1999: 1st place
USA 2003: 3rd place
China 2007: 3rd place

As you can see, the women's team has always finished in at least third place in a World Cup which can rarely be said about their male counterpart. In 2011, the American team is looking for their revenge against their German rival who won the World Cup in 2007 and 2003. For more regarding the 2011 Women's World Cup and previous tournament, see this site.

The women's national team's latest match was an April 27th exhibition against Australia kicking off a 3 city tour in Cary, North Carolina. The United States had a record of 16-0-2 against Australia (a team ranked 12 in the FIFA rankings) before this match, and the Americans expected nothing less than victory in this match as well, but this was easier said than done.

The United States made it look easy as they scored two goals putting themselves comfortably ahead of their Australian rivals and looked as if they were going to clinch a victory in this Summer Olympic friendly warm-up, but Australia, desperate to beat the Americans for the first time in history, rallied in the last 6 minutes of the match to tie it 2-2 by the 88th minute. With only 2 more minutes (+ stoppage time) the Americans had to think of something fast before the Australians take away a draw. This is where American Carli Lloyd (expecting another winning performance at this year's summer Olympics) stepped in to save the team from defeat against an Australian team that they always beat. Lloyd finally scored the game winner in the first minute of stoppage time keeping any chance of a win from the Australians.



Sports Illustrated described this goal as follows: "...Lloyd put the Americans ahead to stay in the first minute of bonus time. Cat Whitehill sent a free kick toward the goal, keeper Lydia Williams punched it into the air and Lloyd headed the ball into an empty net about 75 seconds before the final whistle sounded."

The main purpose of this match was to warm-up for Beijing, and they proved that they are definitely ready for tougher matches ahead. The other two goals were scored by Natasha Kai and Abby Wambach improving coach Pia Sundhage undefeated record. 11-0-1.

They were also forced to overcome soggy conditions on the turf after a 53 minute weather delay.

Post-game quotes:

Carli Lloyd:

"We hope when we get to Beijing, we're peaking at the right moment. Fatigue was setting in, but this team is about winning and we find a way to get it done."

"I actually liked playing in this weather -- you can't replicate it, and your touch has to be really on and you have to really focus to keep the ball at your feet."

Natasha Kai:

"That's what's going to happen in the Olympics ... and we're just going to have to prepare and fight to the end, and that's what we did."

Australian Coach Tom Sermanni:

"I thought we were actually going to steal a draw."

"We just gave away a dumb free kick, and when you play America, you get Wambachs and the others ... you're going to be in trouble. And to be honest, we just kind of got ... edgy, when we should have just been calm and shut the game down and finished it off."


For more information regarding the almost invincible and unbeatable US Women's National Team, check out the official website.

I know leave you with a few youtube videos of goals from the current US Women's National team squad as well as some random videos featuring players from the team:

Interview with Natasha Kai (embedding was disabled on this video so had to post the link)

A tribute to the team from a random youtuber



Here is the link to the official youtube page of the US Soccer Federation for videos from both the Men's and Women's soccer team.