WASHINGTON \u2014 For the first time in a while, the United States is not looking ahead to a Women\u2019s World Cup as defending champion.<\/p>\n
This month, the Americans are getting a close-up look at who currently holds the crown.<\/p>\n
Patri Guijarro and Eva Navarro scored in the first 14 minutes, and Adriana Nanclares stopped a second-half penalty kick to lift Spain to a 2-0 victory over the U.S. on Saturday in a clash between the world\u2019s two top-ranked teams. It was the first of two meetings between reigning World Cup champion Spain and the reigning Olympic champion U.S.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re world champions for a reason,\u201d U.S. coach Emma Hayes said. \u201cYou\u2019re not going to just roll them over. But you can\u2019t give them a head start either.\u201d<\/p>\n
The two teams have also combined to win the last three World Cups. They\u2019ll play again Tuesday night near Philadelphia.<\/p>\n
There were enough key players on the field Saturday to make this a decent preview of next year\u2019s World Cup, but some big names were absent, including three-time Ballon d\u2019Or winner Aitana Bonmat\u00ed for top-ranked Spain and defenders Naomi Girma and Emily Sonnett for the United States.<\/p>\n
Mallory Swanson of the Chicago Stars entered the game for the U.S. in the 66th minute, her first appearance with the national team in more than 700 days. She had taken time off for parental leave.<\/p>\n
Spain won this match not by passing circles around the U.S. or even by keeping the ball. Instead, it was a couple of clinical strikes and strong goalkeeping that made the difference \u2014 and even a little physicality.<\/p>\n
\u201cBeing physical in this kind of game is not negotiable,\u201d Spain coach Sonia Berm\u00fadez said through a translator.<\/p>\n
Guijarro scored in the third minute with a brilliant strike from well outside the penalty area, beating goalkeeper Claudia Dickey. The second goal was a more obvious defensive breakdown. Salma Paralluelo\u2019s cross from the left wing found Navarro unmarked to volley home for a 2-0 lead.<\/p>\n
\u201cPlaying a team like Spain, the best in the world, is such a huge test for us,\u201d U.S. defender Emily Fox said. \u201cThey were very efficient in their attack, and they only needed two chances.\u201d<\/p>\n
The U.S. created its share of opportunities. Alyssa Thompson managed to round Nanclares, but a defender blocked her shot. Then Nanclares made a wonderful save, deflecting Sophia Wilson\u2019s long-distance effort off the crossbar.<\/p>\n
The Americans had the better of the chances in the second half. Trinity Rodman started making more of an impact on the left wing, and she appeared to have assisted on a goal by Wilson, but it was disallowed for offside after a video review. VAR later gave the U.S. a penalty, but Lily Yohannes\u2019 shot was low and to the left, and Nanclares was able to make a diving save.<\/p>\n
Hayes pointed out some of the statistical dominance the U.S. enjoyed, but blamed the result on poor execution, not bad luck.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnlucky is being struck by lightning,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Spain went down to 10 players toward the end when Athenea del Castillo received a red card after appearing to pull an American player\u2019s hair. But there wasn\u2019t enough time for the U.S. to do much with the advantage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON \u2014 For the first time in a while, the United States is not looking ahead to a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":878099,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,369297,369296,3,3662,21,19,22,20,25,24,34537,25450,83999],"class_list":["post-878098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-chicago-stars","tag-mallory-swanson","tag-news","tag-spain","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-uswnt","tag-womens-soccer","tag-womens-world-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/878098","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=878098"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/878098\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/878099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=878098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=878098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=878098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}