If Sophia Smith sounded especially reflective after the U.S. women’s national team’s penalty shootout win against Canada in the W Gold Cup semifinal on Wednesday, it was with good reason. Her interim coach Twila Kilgore shared that the striker teared up at the end of the game, which saw her score a goal in extra time and bury a penalty kick in the shootout.
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“It was an emotional goal,” Smith said. “I haven’t scored in a while and have just been kind of on an emotional rollercoaster since the World Cup, so that was a big relief and it just felt really good.”
Seven months prior and an ocean away, the USWNT was on the other end of penalty kick fortunes, exiting the 2023 World Cup in the round of 16 against Sweden. The United States had advanced from Group E by the narrowest of margins, with Smith’s struggles in front of goal a major talking point.
The knockout round provided little respite, with Smith sending her shootout attempt sailing over the crossbar.
“To miss a PK in the World Cup takes a toll on you mentally and then I feel like since then I’ve just been trying to work my way back,” Smith said. “So I think that goal was just a relief of a lot of emotions. “
In the same shootout, Alyssa Naeher had tried her best to keep her team in contention for a third consecutive title. The goalkeeper managed one big save, a diving stop to her right to give the United States a chance to take control. So, too, did she dive to her right on the final kick of the sequence, tapping the ball off the bar before goal-line technology ruled it a conversion to seal the United States’ fate.
On Wednesday, Naeher was again between the posts to face an opponent’s spot-kick shooters. Again, she was particularly tough to beat to her right, as Canada learned the hard way. As she had last summer, she converted a chance of her own, to boot.
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The culmination of the sequence was a far cry from Smith’s painful tears that fell last year. For a goalkeeper who’s often emotionless, Naeher’s wry celebratory smile was equally powerful.
So often, a team’s tournament performance is remembered for the performances of their striker and goalkeeper. In this Gold Cup, the U.S. women’s national team program is no exception.
The inaugural W Gold Cup, a regional competition between women’s teams from federations in North America, Central America and the Caribbean, is notably less ballyhooed than a World Cup, or the impending Olympics this summer, but a continental tournament is still a high-stakes situation — especially in the business end, when foes range from spirited upstart Colombia, regional rival Canada, or world powers Brazil – the United States’ opponent in Sunday’s final.
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Quite a few USWNT players have had Gold Cups to remember. Among them is Jaedyn Shaw, another young attacker with precocious spatial reading, tenacity around goal and a keen sense of when to pass and when to shoot. On Wednesday, the 19-year-old scored for the fourth time in as many games.
But one player who wouldn’t be satisfied with their showings through the quarterfinal was Smith. For the better part of a year, something seemed off when you watched her play. She was effective, no doubt, but the infectious verve that she carried in every section of her bubble braid wasn’t there. She appeared to be a striker playing against her thoughts, rather than one playing free of them.
Smith entered the Gold Cup as the projected starter up top, but a failure to score in the group stage saw Morgan start as the striker in the quarterfinal and semifinal despite only being on the squad as an injury replacement for Mia Fishel.
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When Smith finally did take the field against Canada, the game being played did not resemble soccer in any conventional sense.
“It’s just hard to even call it a game of soccer tonight, especially the first half,” Morgan said afterward. “Your instincts are to dribble, and then you can’t dribble, you’ll lose the ball.”
With Smith on the field, another of CONCACAF’s young star strikers, Jordyn Huitema, broke her own post-World Cup malaise with a goal to draw Canada level eight minutes from full time. She fell on her back with a smile wide enough to light the San Diegan night. It was the exact kind of relief that Smith – and the United States – needed.
Smith finally got her chance off of a Rose Lavelle header from 25 yards out in the ninth minute of extra time, with the ball looped over Canada defender Vanessa Gilles and into Smith’s stride.
From there, it looked like the Smith we’d expected to see in Australia and New Zealand. She created a step of separation from her nearest defender, had her head up to assess what the goalkeeper was offering her, and placed a cool finish in the side of the net.
Usually one to run to the corner flag for her celebrations, the striker instead fell to her knees.
As the fourth official raised her board, it appeared that the task was complete: just one more minute atop the previous 120 to go. Just then, however, Canada went back to the aerial route, and Naeher started to step into the spotlight.
The U.S. goalkeeper met Gilles in a battle for an aerial ball, catching Gilles in the head in an attempt to punch the ball away. VAR determined it was enough contact to warrant a last-second penalty kick, which tournament top scorer Adrianna Leon converted.
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Once again, the United States would have its tournament fate decided from the spot.
Of the three U.S. players to miss spot kicks against Sweden last summer, only Smith remained on the team for the Gold Cup. Against Canada, she stepped up first, and coolly placed her shot to the bottom-left corner past a diving Kailen Sheridan.
Now, it was Naeher’s turn to live up to the moment.
The hero just ten minutes prior, Leon’s shootout attempt veered just left of Naeher’s base position, giving the USWNT goalkeeper a (relatively) easy save at torso level. Huitema placed a penalty in the exact same spot as Leon’s, another easy save for the United States goalkeeper.
Not content with stymying Canada, Naeher then took to the spot herself, powering a shot to her right to give the U.S. a 3-1 advantage.
ALYSSA NAEHER CAN SAVE AND CONVERT PENALTIES 🤯 pic.twitter.com/vewrwXwto5
— Attacking Third (@AttackingThird) March 7, 2024
At 4-2, Canada captain Jessie Fleming needed a conversion to save Canada’s hopes. Rather than rippling the net, however, she fired another shot just to Naeher’s right, giving her a third save in four attempts and spelling an end to Canada’s hopes of winning the inaugural W Gold Cup.
Naeher is one of the program’s most stoic members. She seldom smiles for the pre-game team photo, barely mustering even a nod when interacting with opponents in the handshake line before kickoff. At 35 and having come off a poor season with the Chicago Red Stars, she’s been rotated in and out of the lineup at this tournament with Casey Murphy, eight years her junior.
Against Colombia and (especially) Canada, however, she reminded everyone why she has a firm grip on the No. 1 shirt heading into this summer’s Olympics. In the biggest international moments, she seldom lets her team down.
“Honestly when Alyssa saved that first one I was just like, okay, she is in the zone,” Morgan said after the game. “We got this. Then she stepped up. She scored her penalty and then did not celebrate and then got back on the line and then continued to save that penalty and the next one. It’s…I have never witnessed something so remarkable as I did tonight with Alyssa.
“I don’t even know why you guys are talking to me. You probably just want to talk to Alyssa.”
In a game that was more a series of stand-alone moments than actual soccer, it was a rare match fitting of the skills-challenge nature of penalties. Even in miserable conditions, the night ended in undeniable drama that saw the U.S. book its place in the Gold Cup final.
But this isn’t a tournament played in bygone years when a USWNT first-place finish was the expectation. Brazil easily dispatched a Mexico team that had shocked the United States in the group stage and boasts as deep a pool of dangerous attackers as any nation in the world.
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This United States team, meanwhile, is still under interim management, with their upcoming boss unable to watch the late-night games live from her current residence in London.
This is a team playing for each other.
Through a statement win over Colombia and fending off a determined Canada side — not once, but twice, and from the same shootout scenario that sunk them last summer — they’ve exorcized many of their demons.
They might win it all on Sunday. They also might lose to a deserving opponent. One thing is for certain, though: this is a team that’s no longer sleepwalking in their post-elimination nightmare.
(Top photos: Carmen Mandato/USSF/Getty Images for USSF; Ben Nichols/ISI Photos/USSF/Getty Images for USSF)
