The North American team shone well above the rest, although it went from less to more
They managed to recover the world throne 16 years after the last conquest
There has been no edition of the women’s World Cup -since the first in 1991- in which the United States has not been on the podium. After two golds, three bronzes and one silver -in 2011 they were on the verge of winning the title but fell on penalties precisely against Japan-, the considered best team in history finally regained its throne in Canada.
In a new edition, Already with 24 teams in the group stage from which the best two of each and the best three in total qualified, those of Jill Ellis went from less to more. Along the way they left Colombia (2-0) in the round of 16; to China (0-1), in rooms; to Germany (2-0), in the semifinals; and overwhelmed the champion of the last edition, Japan, in the final (5-2).
The title was decided in the first minutes, because in the 15th minute the North American team was already winning 4-0with a hat-trick by Carli Lloyd.
Sasaki, the Japan coach, made some changes to try to stop the ‘bleeding’ and was able to close the gap with two goals. One, from Nagasato, and the other, on Ertz’s own. Heath put the icing on the cake just after the second goal for the Japanese team and the scoreboard did not move anymore. The United States had finally regained its throne after 16 years.
Controversy
Despite the progress in the format and the use of technology in matches -the automatic goal detection system was used for the first time-, some matches were played on artificial turf pitchessomething that caused a lot of controversy due to the risk of injury that existed.
If anyone was particularly hurt by losing the 2011 final in Germany so hard, it was it. Carli Lloyd. The New Jersey midfielder, who had scored the goals that won the USA gold at the 2008 and 2012 Olympics, missed the penalty in the shootout that decided the World Cup in Germany for Japan. In the 2015 final, with the same teams as in the previous one, he scored a hat-trick in fifteen minutes and won the tournament’s Ballon d’Or.