On the afternoon of July 17, 2011, I was huddled among friendly star-spangled strangers in a soccer bar in Cambridge, MA, alternating between gnashing my teeth, and chewing on my USA scarf like a piece of long, blue cotton taffy. I was playing (martyr-)witness to an amazing match between the U.S. Women’s National Team (USWNT) and Japan in the World Cup Final, a match that finished 2-2, and in which the USA ultimately lost on penalty kicks. I spent the afternoon on a furious, frustrated, and Guinness-fueled bike ride through the humid streets of Boston, thinking about how far away the 2015 tournament was from that moment.
But tonight, the USWNT will look to begin, in earnest, their best efforts at erasing July 17, 2011 from their memories, as they kick off their 2015 World Cup Campaign against Australia. In that effort, the American women will have their work cut out for them right from the start; their placement in Group D (similar to the U.S. Men at last year’s World Cup in Brazil) has been heralded as this year’s ‘Group of Death.’ As the USWNT looks to win its third World Cup Championship, we’ll take a look at the road they face—not only the teams in their path, but the surface itself.
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The US Women look to be the team to beat within the Group of Death, but none of their three opponents are pushovers, not by a long shot. The USWNT’s first opponent, Australia, is ranked 10th in the world, and at the moment, their class is matched by their form. While the US were only able to manage a 0-0 draw against South Korea in their final friendly before the World Cup, Australia did somewhat better against Vietnam: they notched an 11-0 victory. No one wants to lose their first group stage match, and the Australian women will be fighting very hard tonight to pull off the upset against the US.
The Game of the Group: USA vs. Sweden
On paper, the USWNT’s second match, June 12 against Sweden, looks to be the gem of Group D, and arguably the marquee matchup of the entire group stage. Sitting 2nd, the only team ranked higher than the USA in FIFA’s Women’s World Rankings is Germany—who looked the part in their first group stage match yesterday, defeating the Ivory Coast 10-0. However, Sweden, 4th in the world, could make a strong case that even their current Top-5 ranking doesn’t fairly represent their team’s true strength. In the entire World Cup Qualifying campaign, Sweden did not drop a single point. Perhaps even more impressive: in those ten matches, they only conceded one goal.
The matchup with Sweden also holds some interesting interpersonal history for the USWNT, as the Swedish coach, Pia Sundhage, was last in charge of the USA before taking the reins in her native Sweden. Sundhage coached the US Women from 2008 – 2012, during which time she won two Olympic Gold Medals, though likely Sundhage’s memories of her tenure in the US are tainted by last World Cup’s loss to Japan. Although there is unlikely to be any bad blood between Sundhage and her former players, the matchup presents an undeniable tactical advantage for the Swedes. Sundhage knows many, even most of the USWNT players intimately. Hope Solo, Megan Rapinoe, Abby Wambach, all of these players were managed by Sundhage for four years, and thus, at least tactically, Sundhage is arguably better poised than any other manager in this tournament to challenge the USA.
The USWNT’s final group stage match might appear to be their easiest, a game against 33rd-ranked Nigeria, but even this game cannot be taken lightly. The Nigerian women are champions of their continent, having won the African Women’s Championship 2-0 over Cameroon. In their five matches in that tournament, the Nigerian team scored 16 goals, and their combination of prowess in attack and tenacity on the pitch make them a formidable opponent for any team in this tournament.
Turf Wars
There is no denying the quality of soccer we are about to see on the pitch at this year’s Women’s World Cup in Canada; there is, however, a great deal of doubt about the quality of the pitch itself. At this year’s Women’s World Cup, every match will be played on artificial turf, an unprecedented decision by FIFA, and one that has been met by frustration on the behalf of many players. There was even a lawsuit brought against FIFA by several members of the US team, including the USWNT’s all-time leading goalscorer, Abby Wambach. Although the suit was dropped, players remain vocal about FIFA’s decision to play the tournament on turf.
Two years ago, USWNT stalwart Sydney Leroux posted a photo on Twitter of her legs after a match on turf: the burns were prominent, and multiple. In a subsequent interview with ESPN, featuring the photo of Leroux’s battle(/turf)-scarred legs, she condemned the decision to play the tournament on turf, calling out FIFA’s decision as sexist, dismissive of the women’s game. Playing on turf, according to Leroux, not only gave her exceptional turf burns from slide tackles, but also “felt like I was running on concrete.” When asked about the likelihood of the players’ lawsuit against FIFA bearing fruit (or grass), Leroux was sadly prescient: “I feel like we are in an uphill battle with FIFA. I don’t think they are taking this seriously.” “I really feel it is an equality issue…No way in hell [playing on artificial turf] would happen with men. It’s really sad women have to be guinea pigs for this.”
And perhaps the saddest part of all: FIFA received an offer from The Scotts Company to re-sod all six fields for the Women’s World Cup with real grass, and FIFA declined. Abby Wambach claimed to have heard this from Jerome Valcke, the FIFA Secretary General. Since the decision to let some of the greatest female athletes in the world “be guinea pigs” for soccer on artificial turf, FIFA has been embroiled in the largest scandal in its history, with Valcke himself directly implicated in $10 million worth of bribery. It is unlikely that, in her series of indictments, US Attorney General Loretta Lynch had as her goal gender equality within FIFA; however, after a World Cup Champion is crowned in July, perhaps her laudable efforts at rooting out corruption—like a deflected shot in the back of the net—will also result in a new FIFA, one that takes women’s football seriously.