And so, at long last, good night. Or, for half of the USA and Canada geographically and more than half in terms of population, good morning.
Full time: USA 2-2 Canada (3-1 PKs)
Cue the breathless Alyssa Naeher hype. Truth is she had some bad moments in this game. Even if the penalty call just before the final whistle was a bit harsh, Naeher made a mess of that play, and the field conditions weren’t an excuse.
But there’s one characteristic of the US women that simply does not change – no matter who’s coaching, no matter who’s in goal, no matter who’s in form.
They have a nearly boundless capacity to find a way to get it done.
Two chances. That’s pretty much all they got. Both put away as if they were returning an easy serve on a suburban pickleball court.
Few mistakes. Naeher had a couple of dodgy decisions, Tierna Davidson was lucky not to concede a first-half penalty, and the vaunted US midfield wasn’t particularly effective. But they figured out the field conditions and Canada did not. They stuck with the forwards they were marking and Canada did not. They cleared the ball from danger and Canada did not.
On paper, you might be tempted to favor Brazil in the final. They routed the team that dominated the US earlier in this tournament. They’ll be better rested than a US team that just played 120 grueling minutes running through a wading pool.
But you can never, ever think for a moment that the US can’t find a way to win.
(Except when they run out of tactical ideas in 2003, have a total team meltdown in 2007, and suffer an epic scoring slump in 2021. But you get the idea.)
Updated
PKs: USA 3-1 Canada (Fleming saved)
Psssst .. Canada? Don’t shoot to the exact spot where Naeher just saved twice!
They did.
And it’s over.
PKs: USA 3-1 Canada (Horan good)
A slight stutter-step from Horan, Sheridan guesses to her left, and Horan hits it the other way.
Updated
PKs: USA 2-1 Canada (Quinn good)
Naeher starts to go to her right again, but the Duke alum blasts it into the upper right.
PKs: USA 2-0 Canada (Naeher good)
Who needs a midfielder to take PKs when your keeper can do it? Placed perfectly.
PKs: USA 1-0 Canada (Huitema saved)
Exactly the same spot as Leon – to Naeher’s right, and nowhere near far enough away from the big American keeper.
Guess who’s taking the next one?
PKs: USA 1-0 Canada (Albert misses)
The young player based in Europe sends her shot far over the bar.
PKs: USA 1-0 Canada (Leon saved)
Canada sends up the woman who just equalized from the spot. The crowd isn’t happy.
Naeher saves. Now they’re happy.
PKs: USA 1-0 Canada (Smith good)
Sheridan guessed right, but Smith placed it perfectly into the lower left corner.
USA will shoot first. It’s Sophia Smith …
So Gilles, at fault on both US goals, draws the foul that levels the game.
What a wild sequence of events.
Canada subs on Shelina Zadorsky, which I could’ve sworn can’t be done at this stage.
Goooooal! USA 2-2 Canada (Leon 120+6)
Naeher jumps to her right. Leon sends it the other way.
And we’re going to penalties.
It’s 1 a.m. on the East Coast, and I have turned down a substitute-teaching assignment for the morning.
This will be very close to the last kick of the game.
Adriana Leon vs. Alyssa Naeher.
I actually thought the first-half PK shout was more substantial.
Leon takes many deep breaths. No way she’s going to make this.
And I’m wrong again …
We’ll have an on-field review.
Wow.
I think Naeher actually got a little bit of the ball, which would mean no penalty.
The referee disagrees. This will be a penalty, and that’s a brave, brave call. The crowd is unhappy. Naeher gets a yellow card.
Canadian players are trying to move Emily Sonnett away from the penalty spot, where Sonnett has no right to be.
Coaches, don’t let your players emulate any of this.
120th min +1: Well, THAT was interesting! Alyssa Naeher races off her line to grab a long ball floated into the area and gets nothing but Gilles, who was racing forward to get her head to it.
And it’s being checked for a possible penalty.
Still checking …
Still checking …
Just send it for a review. Come on.
120th min: Huitema barely gets a head to a Canadian cross. Naeher collects. One minute of stoppage time, and that’ll be it.
119th min: Midge Purce gets the honor of standing on the sideline waiting to come in while Naeher wastes time. She isn’t waved into the game for some reason.
118th min: Girma calmly deposits the ball out of play to break up a Canadian attack. As mentioned 18 hours ago when this coverage started, she’s the key for the US.
116th min: Lavelle has been superb since her introduction into this game. She disrupts a Canadian attack and wins a throw.
113th min: End-to-end clearances now. That’s not a good thing.
111th min: Gilles holds well under pressure and starts the ball back toward the US goal. The ball eventually goes wide of Naeher’s goal, and we’ll see a long goal kick.
109th minute: Ball down the right for Larisey, and she threads the ball into the penalty area for Huitema. The field must have finally dried a bit – that pass would’ve been literally impossible at some points of this game. But Huitema isn’t able to control and shoot.
107th minute: Emily Sonnett takes the ball to the corner flag. Does she expect to stay there for 13 minutes?
106th minute: Larisey replaces Carle in the final Canadian sub.
Halftime of extra time: USA 2-1 Canada
A whistle, and a roar and scream from the crowd. They realize we have 15 more minutes, right? Maybe?
105th min +1: Quinn battles near midfield and leaves a few bodies strewn about like that classic camera shot of all the dead people and animals in Game of Thrones. Like that battle, it ultimately meant nothing.
104th min: Most of the possession favors the US right now, which is unfortunate for the trailing team.
101st min: USA corner kick, and Horan heads wide. She may be a bit disappointed that she didn’t put one of her chances on target tonight.
Gooooaaaaal! USA 2-1 Canada (Smith 99)
Canada’s defense will be wondering how that happened. A simple flick-on from Rose Lavelle, and all of a sudden, Sophia Smith has a clear shot from 15 yards out. Goal.
Replay … let’s see … oh no. It’s Gilles again. Her backpass was essentially an assist on the first US goal. Now she’s been drawn out of position to allow Smith all the time in the world to line up what will likely stand as the game-winner.
(No, my predictions aren’t worth the virtual ink they’re printed on.)
97 min: Huitema races back in.
Canada play forward for Olivia Smith, but she’s offside. Is that our first offside tonight?
(Checks)
Nope. Second. Both on Canada.
95 min: Assaf Oron writes, “Some refs would have not even whistled for a foul, let alone a yellow card. Red? That’s just so far out. She basically ended the game right there and then. Yes, Brazil were better than Mexico and would have likely won anyway. But from the 29th minute on the match had lost its meaning.”
I was enjoying a nice early evening out watching a colleague sing at a local bar around that time, so I have no opinion of the matter.
But all of this is distracting from what really matters here – rain.
(And, unfortunately, an apparent shoulder injury for Huitema.)
93 min: David Forshaw writes: “I agree with Geoff Danks, the officials have been guilty of this for years. And not just against Canada.”
I’m presuming that means a bit of favoritism toward the US. Since I started refereeing myself, I’ve been a bit kinder to officials, but I think there’s always an inclination to favor the big names, and the US names are generally the biggest.
91 min: Outstanding recovery from Davidson to stop the substitute Smith from bearing down on Naeher’s goal.
Kickoff: Olivia Smith has replaced Kadeisha Buchanan.
End regulation time: USA 1-1 Canada
Our 90-plus minutes end with a ball lofted into the US penalty area, and Leon flops to the ground in a desperate bid to end this game without staying out on this waterlogged pitch for another 30 minutes. No way she’s getting that. I’m going to the kitchen.
90 min +5: Girma, the outstanding US defender, makes the cautious play to put the ball over the line for a corner. Can Canada convert? No, thanks to Girma, who heads it away.
90 min +4: Naeher races off her line and emphatically clears a through ball. Can’t argue with that decision. The US keeper’s early shakiness has subsided, and she was certainly not to blame for the goal.
90 min +1: It’s a half-decent attack from Canada this time, but it ends with a yellow card on Leon for a collision with Emily Fox that to me looked like just that – a collision. The referee thinks otherwise, and that’s our first yellow card.
It’s funny – a lot of online punditry suggests that playing a game in these conditions is a safety issue. But the conditions have also slowed things down and made players focus on their footwork rather than barging into each other.
Canada may complain, though, about that first-half play in which Davidson stepped on Fleming’s foot, an act that was deemed too trivial for an on-field review by VAR.
89 min: Lavelle sets up to take the corner, but Horan transgresses just enough for the referee to have a bit of a chat before they proceed.
It’s a dangerous corner in the end, but Carle clears for Canada in a fit of alliterative goodness. Sonnett wisely plays the ball very far out of reach before Canada can attack.
We’ll have six minutes of stoppage time.
88 min: This feels like a game destined for extra time.
I say that in an effort to reverse-jinx the proceedings again.
USA corner.
85 min: Emily Sonnett is entering the game for Sam Coffey, basically one midfield engine replacing another. It’s as if they’re expecting this game to go to … oh no … extra time.
Does anyone want this to go to extra time? Surely not the players, who have been virtually swimming for 85 hard minutes already.
Goooooaalll! USA 1-1 Canada (Huitema 82)
Not the first time I’ve been wrong. I might argue that I reverse-jinxed the level of intrigue in this game.
Leon plays wide, Lawrence crosses, and Huitema simply outleaps Emily Fox to head the ball past the wrong-footed Naeher, who can only stick up a hand and twist her head to see the ball hit the net.
Updated
80 min: Maybe a bit risky there for Alyssa Naeher. The US keeper slides to grab a ball near the edge of the penalty area. In this weather, she could easily slide all the way out past the line, where she would have to relinquish the ball or concede a dangerous free kick.
78 min: US free kick. Sheridan collects and is bumped to the ground for her troubles. Free kick Canada.
I’ll be surprised if this doesn’t end 1-0.
76 min: 15,245 is the announced attendance. Probably a bit less than that in reality, but it’s also probably safe to say they didn’t do a lot of walk-up business tonight in this weather.
US Soccer and Concacaf would surely welcome a much bigger crowd for the final, of course.
(If it sounds like I’m writing off Canada’s chances of equalizing, that’s only because Canada have no chances of equalizing.)
74 min: Geoff Danks writes: “Just want to throw out a comment. This is garbage, all of it Horrible conditions, poor officiating, disrespect to the players by making this game go ahead.”
Having served as a referee in a steady rain, I’m loath to criticize the officials here, but I’m a bit surprised Canada didn’t get a penalty when Davidson got Fleming’s foot. Well, “surprised” may be the wrong word. Not exactly the first time referees have shown the US women a bit of … shall we say “deference”?
72 min: Here comes Rose Lavelle, replacing Alex Morgan. The crowd roars for Morgan, who responds with applause of her own, but she was a bit at sea tonight.
Yeah, that’s a horrible analogy given the conditions. In any case, she wasn’t really able to impose herself in the attack, but it’s hard to imagine how she could have done better on this field.
69 min: Canadian corner again, but it just goes through the danger area. Still, Canada win a throw-in deep in US territory.
Fleming then wins a free kick from 30 yards out. She has been Canada’s best player this evening by some distance.
67 min: Another sharp play from Naeher cancels out another sharp play from Fleming, as the US keeper grabs a cross from the Canadian midfielder.
Quinn and Viens will come in for Lacasse and Deanne Rose, as Canada attempt to shake up an attack that has produced very little.
66 min: Corner kick for Canada. Leon gets it to the middle of the penalty area, but the US adeptly clear.
64 min: Through ball to Rodman, but her footing is understandably uncertain, and she can’t get an effective cross away.
Sophia Smith will replace Rodman, who gets a rousing ovation from the fans who have stubbornly remained in the stands here. The US forward didn’t have much to show for her effort, but an effort it was, and at the very least, she forced the Canadian defense to retreat repeatedly.
62 min: Sheridan plays on. The fields certainly seems to be a bit better now, though it could just be because the grounds crew took squeegees to the most visible puddles. We’re still seeing some geyser-level sprays on some bounces of the ball.
Updated
59 min: Horan bangs into Huitema once, twice, three times, and that’s enough for the ref to blow the whistle.
As play resumes, Rodman stumbles forward and skids about 10 yards face-first as if going on a nice day sledding. She gets up and seems somewhat the worse for wear. Then she wrings out her shirt, producing a plentiful amount of H20.
Kailen Sheridan sits down in her penalty area to get some attention, and both teams seem content to take a short break.
58 min: Fox goes down the right flank for the US and plays a semi-dangerous ball for Williams, but it sails out of play.
56 min: Enter Jordyn Huitema for Canada, replacing Awujo, who is still a college player for USC just a short distance up the California coast.
55 min: Naeher alertly snares a through ball well before any Canadian attacker can reach it. Good decision that time.
53 min: Free kick for the USA, and it’s smartly played up in the air for a round of head volleyball that ends when Sheridan snares the ball for Canada.
52 min: Kailen Sheridan has a moment of indecision, and Lynn Williams has the ball in space. She lofts it for Horan, whose header goes wide. In these conditions, that’s a great chance.
50 min: Lori Lindsey says the US would be really lucky not to concede a penalty there. Well, they’re lucky.
Referee Christina Unkel, doing commentary for Paramount, also believes the play should’ve been sent down for an on-field review.
Did Davidson get enough of the ball before getting Fleming’s foot? Does it matter?
48 min: And the refs may need that communications equipment, because Tierna Davidson stepped on Jessie Fleming’s foot in the US penalty area. Is that a penalty? It’s not a ton of contact, and Fleming didn’t have the clearest shot.
Now all the players are in the midfield circle. What’s going on?
46 min: Dodgy decision from Alyssa Naeher, coming out and making a mess of things. Canada can’t play quickly enough to take advantage, though, and Naeher retreats quickly.
Another delay, with the match officials again dealing with equipment issues.
Kickoff: And we’re back …
Delay
We’re not getting the whole story here. The teams returned to their benches but immediately went back to warm up again.
The officials are getting new communications equipment. Maybe their gear can only handle a downpour and not a monsoon?
Rain is falling again.
Nighswonger and Shaw are out. We’ll see Casey Krueger and Lynn Williams in this half.
It appears we will play a second half. The rain seems to have stopped, and the puddles seem smaller.
I wish I could’ve identified the player who was singing along with Stayin’ Alive, which is blaring on the PA system.
Well, hold on – we have an animated conversation between the referee and someone on the sideline, perhaps the match commissioner? Then she stops for a word with each team. And …
… we’re stopping?
The referee is spending the halftime interval jogging around the field and rolling the ball at various places on the field to test its playability. It’s hard to imagine that it’s gotten any worse.
Halftime: USA 1-0 Canada
Splish-splash, I was taking a bath, long about Saturday night …
Jaedyn Shaw’s opportunistic finish off a backpass that stopped in deep water is still the difference in the game. Canada has allegedly possessed the ball a bit better than the USA, but the defense simply hasn’t caught on to the notion that the ball needs to be kicked without subtlety or nuance. All those years of listening to their parents yell “Boot it!” has clearly paid off for the USA.
But this is how the US women roll. They prepare, and they adapt. 1-0 to the hosts.
Updated
45 min: An on-screen graphic declares that each team has a passing accuracy of 80%. This has amused our commentators.
Concacaf’s Match Center says it’s 79% for Canada and 62% for the USA. Still seems a little high, but if the ball is kicked and then goes to a teammate, it doesn’t really matter whether it was intended or not.
41 min: Greetings to all Canadian readers joining us after today’s action at the Brier, the Canadian men’s curling championship. To sum up what has happened thus far in this game. imagine that you were throwing a routine guard, but the ice melted into a lake one-third of the way down, and your rock came to a stop, and then your opponent had an uncontested draw to score.
If you don’t know curling, trust me. That’s what happened, in curling terms.
In soccer terms, it was a backpass that completely stopped because there are several centimeters of water in places on this field, and the US pounced to go ahead 1-0.
39 min: Corner kicks from each side for the US, and Horan gets a head to the second but puts the ball right at Sheridan, who holds well.
37 min: Fleming with her second nutmeg of the game. You’d expect to see that on a futsal surface or the most pristine grass, not the offshoot of the Pacific Ocean that this field has become.
34 min: Nice to hear from Peter Oh: “I guess this match just goes to show that some big-name players think they walk on water.”
31 min: The US defense have adjusted to the conditions. Young left back Jenna Nighswonger is taking the approach of blasting the ball into orbit, which is something we don’t teach youth players but is absolutely the right call here.
29 min: There’s nothing to report.
Reminder: The US women regained their world title in water polo earlier this year.
Updated
26 min: The attendance figures for this game will be interesting. The numbers were atrocious for the first two US games in this tournament – a not-unexpected 3,242 for the game against the Dominican Republic, a disappointing 8,315 for the win over Argentina – and still a puzzling 11,612 for the loss to Mexico. The number climbed to 16,746 for the quarterfinal. This game is being attended by hardy souls in ponchos – maybe not as many as organizers would like to see, but they’re all worthy of praise for sticking it out here.
24 min: Canadian corner, and Kadeisha Buchanan gets a solid head to it but not on target.
GOAAAAAL!!! USA 1-0 Canada (Shaw 20)
Horan lofts the ball over the defense. Vanessa Gilles goes back for a routine backpass to her keeper.
It gets about a third of the way there. And Gilles stopped running.
Jaedyn Shaw did not, and the young forward pounces for the easy finish.
This will be on Canada’s “Not Top 10” highlight reels for weeks to come.
Updated
18 min: At both ends, attackers have gotten behind their defenders with astounding regularity. On a dry field, this game might be 2-2 already.
17 min: Now it’s Sheridan’s turn to come out, and that may have been a good decision because the ball wasn’t going to carry its momentum into the penalty area.
15 min: Good cross for Canada with the ball up in the air a bit, but the contact isn’t clean.
Naeher then comes out to deal with a half-break for Rose, which is probably an unnecessary decision under these conditions but works out OK for her here.
13 min: Canada’s defense have not adjusted here, or perhaps they’re relying on the water to serve as another line of defense. Alex Morgan finds space as the ball flies over the top, and Canada is again rather fortunate that the ball couldn’t really be played.
11 min: A breakaway for Trinity Rodman. She is unable to dislodge the ball from its aquatic resting place with enough force to continue her moment.
Which is a fancy way of saying the ball was stuck in a puddle. Again.
9 min: I checked with my favorite referee forum for their take on the decision to keep playing in these conditions. The answer: “What the hell are we doing?”
MLS, though, might consider these conditions sunny and dry compared to the recent game in Salt Lake City.
7 min: Jessie Fleming just nutmegged a US midfielder. Given the playing surface, that might be the most impressive feat I’ve ever seen on an alleged soccer field.
5 min: This is rugby. Because it’s impossible to pass along the grass, half of the players on the field have converged within a short distance of the ball.
4 min: Referee Katia Garcia of Mexico picks up the ball and runs around with it, perhaps asking the coaches and captains if they’re sure they want to play an alleged game of soccer in this slop. The answer is yes.
3 min: Jaedyn Shaw misses a sitter – in the sense that the ball was sitting in a puddle 50 yards from goal. Canadian keeper Kailen Sheridan had gone adventuring, so the goal was wide open, but Shaw’s shot was nowhere near the target.
2 min: Commentator Lori Lindsey points out that we’re likely to see more longball than these teams are used to playing. True, and that may explain why Rose Lavelle was left on the bench. Barcelona in their prime couldn’t play possession soccer on this pitch.
Kickoff: It’s wet. Very wet. You say “puddle”. I say “pond”.
Updated
The Paramount studio crew believes Alex Morgan and Alyssa Naeher have cemented their places in the starting XI after Morgan was omitted from the roster recently and Naeher’s place was ever so slightly questioned.
Allow me to retort …
This is, at last, no longer a team in which a veteran keeps her place with an occasional half-decent showing. Naeher has made some good saves in this tournament. She was also at sea on the first goal in the Mexico loss.
Morgan, at this age, scores in spurts. There’s no reason to believe (or disbelieve) that she will (or won’t) be in (or out) of that form this summer.
She’s still enough of a threat to merit a place on the roster, even on the absurdly small 18-player Olympic squad. (Seriously – FIFA? IOC? Can we do something about that?) This isn’t a case of dragging a clearly unfit Megan Rapinoe along for the sake of nostalgia. Morgan should be there.
It would be a pity in a sense for Naeher to lose her spot, given how many years she has required to get the respect she deserves. She’s neither a pioneer like Briana Scurry nor a flamboyant presence like Hope Solo. She’s just a terrific keeper.
But she’s not the only good keeper the US have, and we have months to go until the Olympics. And the imposing figure of Emma Hayes will soon be on the US sideline, making decisions more ruthlessly and impartially than any coaches of the past, who may have had designs on an open competition for places but were not empowered to follow through.
Canada lineup
Quinn and Jordyn Huitema rotate out.
1- Kailen Sheridan, 3 – Kadeisha Buchanan, 6 – Deanne Rose, 10- Ashley Lawrence, 12 - Jade Rose, 13 – Simu Awujo, 14 – Vanessa Gilles, 16 - Gabby Carle, 17 – Jessie Fleming, 19 - Adriana Leon, 20 – Cloe Lacasse.
Lawrence, Sheridan and Fleming are in The Guardian’s list of the top 100 female footballers in the world. Buchanan was in the 2022 list.
Canada knocked out the US women in the 2020 (2021) Olympic semifinals en route to an overdue gold medal. The World Cup campaign last year (seems like eons ago, doesn’t it?) was less successful.
The northerners are also the only team other than the USA to win a Concacaf championship, defeating Mexico in 1998 (when the USA didn’t participate) and again in 2010 (when Mexico beat the USA in the semifinals).
US lineup
The key player for the United States isn’t a household name like Alex Morgan (who’s starting) or Rose Lavelle (who’s not). It’s Naomi Girma, a shutdown defender.
She starts.
1-Alyssa Naeher; 3-Jenna Nighswonger, 4-Naomi Girma, 7-Alex Morgan, 8-Jaedyn Shaw, 10-Lindsey Horan (Capt.), 12-Tierna Davidson, 15-Korbin Albert, 17-Sam Coffey, 22-Trinity Rodman, 23-Emily Fox
It’s the same group that started in the 3-0 win over Colombia in the quarterfinals.
It’s definitely not the same group that lost 2-0 to Mexico. Only Naeher, Fox, Coffey, Horan and Rodman remain in the lineup from that game.
Has the US women’s team ever had a competition for places with this much intensity, especially this close to the Olympics? No, they haven’t.
If the raaaaaain comes, they run and hide their heads …
OK, that’s an English band, and it’s not normally associated with California weather. But that’s what we’ve got at the moment.
Earlier this evening, Brazil wiped out Mexico 3-0. Yes, that’s the same Mexico squad that beat the US 2-0 … and worse, outplayed the US.
So has the balance of power shifted? It’s raining in California. Will it be snowing in the Dominican Republic? Blazing hot in Nunavut? Or will we see the US women return to their perch as the best team in the Americas with a win tonight and another against Brazil in the final of the Concacaf W Gold Cup, which has delivered on its promise of providing some compelling action with some South American invitees joining the North American triumvirate.
Beau will be here shortly. In the meantime here’s a look back at the USWNT’s quarter-final win over Colombia.
