Women’s World Cup: U.S. survives tough challenge from Spain

The U.S. didn’t so much win its Women’s World Cup game with Spain on Monday as it did escape it.

The Americans entered the elimination rounds of the tournament unchallenged, unscored upon and unbeaten. In 90 intense minutes, Spain ticked off the first two of those boxes and almost got the third before the U.S. prevailed 2-1 on the second of two Megan Rapinoe penalty kicks to advance to a long-anticipated quarterfinal showdown with France on Friday in Paris.

If the U.S. was happy to have survived, though, it was also thankful for the challenge Spain provided. Because after a group stage in which the Americans set a World Cup record by scoring 18 goals and tied one by not giving up a goal, even the players admitted everything had seemed too easy.

Spain changed that in a hurry.

The U.S. outshot the Spaniards 12-5, outpossessed them, outpassed them and outdefended them. Yet, the game turned, as so many have in this World Cup, on slow-motion video review. When Rose Lavelle tumbled to the turf after being brushed by midfielder Virginia Torrecilla the 71st minute, Hungarian referee Katalin Kulcsar blew her whistle and pointed to the spot.

The video assistant referee then called down to Kulscar and advised her to have another look at Torrecilla’s challenge. And after reviewing the play at least a dozen times from multiple angles during a four-minute delay, Kulscar confirmed her call and Rapinoe calmly slotted a second penalty kick past a diving Sandra Panos and just inside the left post for the game winner.

“We practice these a lot,” said Rapinoe, whose first penalty-kick score came after Tobin Heath was brought down in the box by Maria Leon. “For us getting that routine and just going through that quite often and figuring out what that is, is extremely helpful.

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