On a Sunday night time in Melbourne, in the course of a Stockholm afternoon and with the solar rising over the East Coast of america, Sweden’s nationwide ladies’s soccer workforce went and delivered a outcome to shake up the world.
Lina Hurtig delivered the winner in penalty kicks on a weird shot that required an additional second to substantiate, going off Alyssa Naeher’s palms and barely crossing the road earlier than Naeher took one other swipe at it.
After the referee confirmed the win — the goal-line expertise exhibiting it crossed the road by inches — the Swedish workforce ran to the nook in jubilation, a 5-4 win on penalties in hand after a scoreless 120 minutes.
The stalwarts of the U.S. Girls’s Nationwide Workforce, then, regarded round in disbelief.
They hugged one another and Megan Rapinoe wore a smile of disbelief. This was a sport, and a shootout, that gave option to such emotion.
After either side hit their first two penalties, issues gave option to madness. Nathalie Bjorn hit one excessive.
Then, with an opportunity to take a decisive lead within the shootout, Rapinoe did the identical.
Rebecka Blomqvist’s fourth try was saved by Naeher, and Sophia Smith, with an opportunity to win it, missed the web completely.
Needing to attain to maintain the sport alive, Sweden’s Hanna Bennison did simply that, then Vlatko Andonovski stepped up the madness by having Naeher take a penalty, which she solely went and made.
Kelley O’Hara, one of many stalwarts of the U.S.’ World Cup success, will put on the cruelest second of this sport, hitting her penalty off the correct submit after approaching within the 119th minute for the specific objective of taking one.
Then, Hurtig went and bounced america from the event two weeks forward of schedule.
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