Picture Copyright Jenna Watson for USA TODAY Sports activities

Traditionally, america girls’s nationwide crew has gotten alongside properly with its Swedish counterpart. On the inaugural Girls’s World Cup in 1991, the 2 sides stayed on the similar resort. The American gamers lent the Swedes their pasta. When the US finally received the match, they returned to the resort with the phrase “Congratulations” spelled out in Swedish soccer kits. Probably the most profitable coaches in current USWNT historical past is a Swede: Pia Sundhage.

That particular relationship would possibly change considerably, nonetheless, after the US endured defeat to Sweden in a second straight main match.

On Sunday, after the groups performed out a 0-0 draw within the World Cup second spherical, Sweden received on penalty kicks. As a consequence, america suffered its earliest elimination but. There have been American tears, Swedish smiles, ABBA enjoying within the background. There was a Megan Rapinoe penalty miss, of all issues, one thing the participant herself described succinctly as “darkish comedy.”

On the final Olympic competitors, two years in the past in Tokyo, america misplaced 3-0 to the identical opposition of their group stage opener. Now, following Sunday’s shootout heartbreak, Vlatko Andonovski’s aggressive tenure is bookmarked by losses to Sweden. And, in a means, these two matches provide an incisive summation of his time in cost up to now.