Match Report: Goalkeeping masterclass by Christiane Endler keeps US to scoreless second half
Megan Rapinoe was rested for the 3-0 win over Chile. But she did not duck the media and the continuing issue of her side’s 13-0 win over Thailand.
Despite attempts to conflate the two, there’s clearly a difference between the issue of ratcheting back the goal scoring and not overdoing the celebrations for goals when you are already six, seven or eight ahead.
Laudably, Rapinoe stopped in the media zone and took more questions on the matter. On the subject of not scoring, she had a fair response:
“Soccer doesn’t lend itself to even doing that. I don’t know if any sport does as the point of any sport is to score more than the other team.”
She also took the opportunity to make clear that she has values on the issue of sportsmanship and where she would have vocally drawn the line to her less experiences teammates:
“If we were passing it back and forth a million times, that’s boring. That’s disrespectful to everyone; fans, ourselves I think if we were out there dancing on it and trying to nutmeg everybody and doing ridiculous things that we would never do, I certainly would have said something if they were doing that.”
“That would have been disrespectful but we just played and honestly for us, it’s about performance as well and we’re trying to sharpen things and get the feeling that we want heading into the rest of the tournament.”
It almost sounded like a sense of relief entered into her voice when she looked forward to the next match against the far stronger Sweden team who will be a better match for the USA than Thailand or Chile
We respect every opponent but know that Sweden’s way tougher. They’ve got two wins. At this point it’s a perfect game to narrow in our focus, even putting a performance in heading into the next stage.
That match takes place in Le Havre on June 20 and the USWNT need just a draw to top their group.
Pros will be tweeting live from Le Havre and have a full photo gallery from Jeff Wong.
