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After the United States advanced to the knockout stage of the FIFA Women’s World Cup with a 0-0 draw against Portugal on Tuesday, Fox analysts held nothing back, with Alexi Lalas calling the performance “abysmal” and former national team member Carli Lloyd calling players out for an uninspiring performance, as well as their post-match behaviour.
“You never want to take anything for granted,” Lloyd said. “You put on that jersey and you want to give it everything you have, for the people who came before you, for the people who come after you. I’m just not seeing that passion. I’m just seeing a lacklustre, uninspiring, taking it for granted [attitude], where winning and training and doing all that you can to be the best possible individual player is not happening.”
The US out-shot Portugal 17-6 but was almost eliminated in second-half stoppage time when a shot from Portugal substitute Ana Capeta hit the right post. After the draw, Fox briefly showed U.S. players dancing and posing for selfies with fans, which drew the ire of Lloyd.
“I’m all for positivity – they have advanced out of the group,” Lloyd, who retired in 2021 and was a member of the US team that won World Cup titles in 2015 and 2019, said during Fox’s post game show. ” . . . But at the same time, the cheering, the dancing – I’ve got a problem with that because I wouldn’t be happy. I know several of their players, former players, ’99ers [champions] – they wouldn’t be happy with that tie. It hasn’t been good overall in these first three games. I understand the players doing interviews, I was in that position before. You don’t want to speak negatively, you don’t want to actually say what is going on, I understand that.
“But it’s the body language, it’s the facial expressions I’m seeing where I really don’t know if they’re upset with how they played and the results.”
Ryan Anderson/Stuff
Sophia Smith of the United States is tackled by Tatiana Pinto of Portugal in their group E match at Eden Park.
The former German player Ariane Hingst added, “This is not the face of the American team I’ve known before [and] it kind of shocked me.” Lalas chimed into say, “You’ve got to read the room, and these women did not read the room in that moment” after the tie. Neither Lloyd nor Hingst would place the U.S. among the top 10 teams at the moment, and Lalas dropped them precipitously to eighth, joking that he was a ray of sunshine.
Lalas went on to call the performance “rudderless” and “confused.”
“The problem is – the dancing, whatever – behind that seems to be belief that they’re going to find some other gear, that they’re going to turn that switch on and something magical is going to happen in the round of 16 to make them a better team than they actually are, and that team has been hiding throughout the group stage,” Lalas said. “I’m not sure that anybody that watched this – and I’m not sure if they ultimately believe that. If this is as good as it gets, that’s not good enough to win a World Cup but to get by Sweden in the round of 16.”
The fire alarm went off during Tuesday night’s game between the United States and Portugal.
U.S. Coach Vlatko Andonovski was asked about the criticism after the match.
“One thing that I want to say is that this team wanted to win this game more than anything else, and they put everything they could in preparation for this tournament and in every game,” he said. “To question the mentality of this team, to question the willingness, the willingness to win, to compete, I think it’s insane. But I’ve never seen this team step on the field and not try harder and not compete. So, everyone is entitled to an opinion and they can say whatever they want, but I just know how this team feels. And it’s not like we played well by any means, but we owned it. We know it’s not good enough. We know we’re not happy with our performance, but it’s, you know, we qualified for the next round. We’re moving on.”
The U.S. advances to face the winner of Group G, which is likely to be Sweden, on Sunday.
“I told the team, ‘Listen, we did what we had to do, we’re moving on,'” U.S. defender Kelley O’Hara told Fox. “‘The group stage is done. This is over. It’s in the rearview. We have our next game in front of us and that’s the only one that matters.’ Again, maybe we didn’t do it the way we wanted to or planned on doing it, but we’re advancing, and this is the World Cup and that’s all that matters. We gotta be looking forward and only focused on that.”
MONIQUE FORD/The Post
Former USA player Carli Lloyd hasn’t been impressed with her team’s efforts at the World Cup.
According to Hingst, the Americans were “dancing in a group; on the pitch they were playing like individuals.”
“Things are being revealed on this world stage. I don’t think there’s one problem that’s necessarily going on – I think there’s multiple things,” Lloyd said. “That gear, that switch, doesn’t just turn on once you hit the knockout stages. You have to build momentum. We built momentum in 2015 and we also had the players that could dig deep and had that champion mentality that could dig us out of a hole and I’m not so sure this group has that now.”
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