AUCKLAND, New Zealand — The United States women’s third group-stage game is usually for style points, not survival.
Not at this World Cup.
For the first time since 2007, the USWNT goes into the final group game still needing to lock up its spot in the knockout rounds. As straightforward as the USWNT’s path to advance is – win or tie and they’re in – so, too, is what would be a catastrophic scenario for a team that’s one of the most successful in the world. In any sport. Men’s or women’s.
Lose to Portugal on Tuesday night, and the four-time World Cup champions will almost certainly be headed home. Never has the USWNT failed to reach the semifinals at a World Cup. Never have they bowed out in the group stage, at either the World Cup or the Olympics.
“The most important thing, obviously, is getting in the knockout stage first and foremost. That’s our main focus right now,” USWNT coach Vlatko Andonovski said Monday. “Let’s make sure we get into the next stage.”
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The law of averages, and the game’s growing parity, means both those USWNT streaks are bound to come to an end at some point. Germany is nodding in agreement, its almost 30-year run without a loss in the group stage having ended Monday night.
The question, then, is how long the USWNT can dodge winding up on the wrong side of history.
There is a scenario in which the USWNT could go through with a loss. But it would require Vietnam beating the Netherlands by a lopsided enough margin that the USWNT maintains its edge in goal differential, currently plus-2, over the Dutch.
Given Vietnam has yet to even score a goal in its first World Cup, probably best not to count on that.
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None of this is to say the USWNT has suddenly become an awful team. Much as the former U.S. president and his followers might love for that to be the case, it’s not. The USWNT is on an 11-game unbeaten streak and has conceded only two goals this year.
But the game is growing so much, and so fast, that the margins for error that used to exist no longer do.
Had the USWNT converted one of its many, many chances for the go-ahead goal against the Netherlands, we’d be talking about whether Italy or Argentina would be a better matchup for the round of 16. Or rooting around for the Sweden voodoo dolls − even if they didn’t work at the Tokyo Olympics.
Instead, the USWNT is in perhaps its most precarious position ever at a World Cup. Certainly since 2007, when there was at least a mathematical chance of elimination in the final group game.
Portugal is no gimme opponent, either, even if the USWNT has won all 10 of their previous meetings.
Portugal is one of those teams that has made dramatic improvement in a very short amount of time, jumping from 40th in the world in 2015 to a team-best 21 in the latest FIFA rankings. It could wreak havoc just as Jamaica, Colombia and Nigeria already have.
“Every other day, there’s something that everybody’s shocked by. And it’s not because of one team having a terrible game and the other team the game of their life. It’s because both teams competed well,” Andonovski said.
“Isn’t that what we all want to see? When we’re talking about the growth of the women’s game and the growth of the sport, this is an indication of it. And I’m just happy to see it.”
Well, sure. But not if it’s at the USWNT’s expense.
There is, of course, a real easy way to avoid all this angst: Win. Come out blazing and tag Portugal for a couple of goals early. Show the rest of the world − and the doubters and the haters − that the hiccups in the first two games were the growing pains of a young and inexperienced team, but when it matters most, the USWNT remains the USWNT.
The U.S. women are used to making history. This is one time they want no part of it.
Follow USA TODAY Sports columnist Nancy Armour on Twitter @nrarmour.
