The USWNT remain in the lead of Group D but they are far from safe as they drew Sweden 0-0 tonight. I’m not going to lie, the game wasn’t the most entertaining game of the World Cup, it was pretty bad. Hopefully those who watched for the first time since it was on regular FOX realize that it gets way more exciting than that.
The game started rather even. Especially in the first half, the two teams were equally off. Both teams were wildly inaccurate with passes and only the US had a shot on target.
It wasn’t until the second half and specifically into the last 15 or so minutes where things picked up. Throughout the half, Amy Rodriguez, Abby Wambach and Alex Morgan entered the game for Morgan Brian, Christen Press and Sydney Leroux respectively. With all that fire power entering the game fresh going up against a Swedish team struggling for fitness, surely the USWNT would score a goal to get the three points. While they tried their hardest, they just couldn’t get a goal and it ended 0-0.
Now after seeing the USWNT play their second game, what do we make of the team? That is tough to say. On one hand, they haven’t played spectacularly well, they can’t seem to link up with that final pass in the box and according to Paul Carr, they were shut out in the Group Stage for the first time ever.
#USWNT is shut out in the Women's World Cup group stage for the first time ever in 20 group games.
— Paul Carr (@PCarrESPN) June 13, 2015
On the other hand, the USWNT is playing in one of the toughest groups in the Women’s World Cup and just got done playing the 5th and 10th ranked teams in the world, in the freaking Group Stage, in their first two games. Getting four points after that and still lead your group, maybe the USWNT isn’t playing so bad after all.
Either way, the job isn’t done. The USWNT leads Group D but face a must win against Nigeria if they want to remain top of the group. The way the bracket is set up, because of better travel and easier opponents, it really does pay to win your group. As you can see below, everyone is separated by the next ranked team by a single point.
[table id=FIFAWWCD /]
Theoretically, any team can win the group and any team could be knocked out. It’s going to be a rather stressful four days.
