Wednesday, September 18, 2024

The Comeback

TigerBlog said yesterday that he was going to come back to the USA-Germany quarterfinal game at the Women's U20 World Cup in Colombia.

Now, 24 hours after he first saw the result, it's even more ridiculous that the U.S. won that game. 

If you didn't see yet, Germany led 1-0 on a penalty kick in the 61st minute, and things stayed that way until the beginning of what was to be eight minutes of stoppage time. After two minutes, Germany scored again, making it a 2-0 game.

Nobody comes back from two goals down in stoppage time, right? And it's even less likely when seven full minutes of stoppage time have come and gone and it's still 2-0, right? 

Somehow, shockingly, the U.S. scored ... and then scored again, all in 90 seconds. Suddenly, it was a 2-2 game.

Who looks more shocked here? The German goalkeeper? The U.S. players? Anyone in the stands? 

The teams then played two scoreless 15 minute overtime periods before the Americans won in penalty kicks. Had this happened in the full men's or women's World Cup, or in the Champions League, it would be considered without question the greatest comeback in soccer history.

Hey, TigerBlog thinks it has to be up there with any comeback anyway. Of course, he measures all comebacks by Princeton's rally from 27 down with 15 minutes to play to beat Penn in men's basketball at the Palestra in 1999, but in the soccer game in Colombia, the United States team didn't have 15 minutes to do it. 

In fact, the Americans didn't know how long they had period. Only the ref knew, and the whistle could have been blown at any time. That's why after the first U.S. goal, there was a bit of a scuffle between the American players and the German goalkeeper to get the ball out of the net and back to midfield as quickly as possible.

By the way, this is the 11th U-20 Women's World Cup. Of the first 10, three have been won by the U.S. and three have been won by Germany. 

The only other country to have won more than one is North Korea, who will be the U.S. opponent in tonight's semifinal. The other semifinal matches Japan and the Netherlands, with the winners to meet for the championship Sunday.

Despite the three titles, the United States hasn't reached the final at the event since 2012, when it defeated Germany 1-0 in the final. Since then, there have been four U20 Women's World Cups, and the best the U.S. has done is one fourth place finish. 

Also, interestingly, the U.S. has never hosted the event — and it won't be hosting the next one either, which will be in two years in Poland.

And who is the leading scorer for this U.S. team to date? That would be Princeton's own Pietra Tordin, who has four goals so far in the tournament.

The fact that the U.S. has gotten this far guarantees that the team has two games left, since there is still a consolation game for third place as well. For Tordin, that means she'll have these two games in Colombia and then a one-week break before Princeton's next game.

The Tigers are at Fairfield tonight in the team's final game prior to the Ivy League opener. After tonight, Princeton won't play again for 10 days, with its next game at Ithaca.

Princeton leads the series with Fairfield 5-0, and the Stags have never even scored a goal against the Tigers. Could that change this year? Fairfield is 6-1 on the season, and the team is ranked sixth in Division I in scoring offense, with 3.43 goals per game, including 21 in the last four games. 

Fairfield's lone loss is against No. 24 Texas A&M.

Kickoff tonight for the United States-North Korea game is 5:30 in Cali, Colombia, which is 6:30 Eastern time. That game is on FS2.

The Princeton-Fairfield game starts at 7 Eastern. That game is on ESPN+.



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