AUCKLAND, New Zealand — Megan Rapinoe lives for these types of moments.
The USWNT can advance to the knockout rounds with a win or a tie over Portugal on Tuesday. Lose, however, and the four-time World Cup champions would almost certainly be knocked out in the group stage for the first time ever at a World Cup or an Olympics.
The pressure of that, the anxiety, the realization that losing would forever change the way people see this team − it would make most people want to puke.
For Rapinoe, it’s rocket fuel.
“It’s a pressure moment, and that’s what the tournament is now. Every single game from here on out is that pressure moment and that’s the best part of being at the World Cup,” Rapinoe said Sunday, her eyes gleaming.
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“I think that is something that always gets passed down to the generations of this team,” she added. “We go into these moments like, ‘Hell yeah. This is exactly where we want to be.'”
The Americans currently sit atop Group E by virtue of their plus-3 goal differential, two better than the Netherlands. If they win the group, they can avoid playing old nemesis Sweden in the round of 16. Possibly avoid Spain until the semifinals, too, if the team that gave them fits in 2019 wins its group.
If the USWNT doesn’t win the group, well …
The last time the Americans played Sweden was in the group-stage opener of the Tokyo Games, and Sweden’s 3-0 rout was the USWNT’s most lopsided loss at the Olympics. Sweden also eliminated the USWNT in the quarterfinals of the Rio Games, the only time the Americans haven’t reached the semifinals at a World Cup or an Olympics.
Sweden’s foot is on the gas once again at this tournament, judging by its 5-0 steamrolling of Italy on Saturday night.
And if the USWNT loses? Take cover because that’s sign-of-the-apocalypse territory.
“Obviously if we would have won the last game, we would have clinched the group and been through already. But whatever,” Rapinoe said. “This is the tournament. This is what it means. This is the pressure of being the No. 1 team in a World Cup, but this is just the pressure in general of being at the World Cup.
“This moment is going to come no matter what,” she said. “It’s not a bad thing, I don’t think, for everyone to be like, ‘OK, let’s strap in and get ready for this game,’ knowing that not only the result but the performance needs to be there.”
Few on this team know this scenario better than Rapinoe. It was her cross to Abby Wambach that saved the USWNT from elimination in the quarterfinals of the 2011 World Cup. She scored both goals against Spain (round of 16) and France (quarterfinals) four years ago, and converted a penalty kick for the USWNT’s first goal in its 2-0 victory over the Netherlands in the final.
So she’s not concerned about needing to win, and probably win big, against Portugal. Quite the opposite.
“I think everybody is looking at this like, ‘Let’s go,'” she said.
Rapinoe, who turned 38 on July 5, announced before the World Cup that she will retire at the end of the club season. Though she remains one of the world’s best players — check out video of OL Reign’s game against Angel City on May 27 — hers is a reduced role at this World Cup. She’s not starting, and she didn’t even get into the game against the Netherlands.
(That isn’t a knock on Rapinoe. No one did.)
But much like Wambach in 2015, Rapinoe would have driven the team bus if it meant playing in one last World Cup. The friendlies, the trainings, the hours she puts in on her own — Rapinoe does it for these moments that make most other people’s palms sweat. So she can have an impact when the stakes are highest, even if it’s in a different form than it was at her first three World Cups.
“Every day in training I’m like, ‘I’m gonna try to bust your ass.’ That makes them better. That makes me better. That makes the whole team better,” she said.
“I think it’s been really rewarding,” Rapinoe added. “Sometimes I think this gets lost, but I get to play in another World Cup. I get to be in another situation to compete for a championship. As an elite athlete, as an elite soccer player, that’s the point. You don’t want to play in meaningless games.”
The USWNT’s game against Portugal is anything but that. And Rapinoe, for one, cannot wait.
Follow USA TODAY Sports columnist Nancy Armour on Twitter @nrarmour.
