Women's World Cup 2019: Spain gets appropriate punishment for foul play against USWNT

Mike DeCourcy

Women's World Cup 2019: Spain gets appropriate punishment for foul play against USWNT image

You did not need to look hard to find descriptions of Spain's women's national team as playing a beautiful brand of soccer: lots of possession, lots of precise passing, maybe not so many goals but the voyage to that errant shot is generally lovely.

Was that going to be the style that would end the United States’ reign at the FIFA Women's World Cup?

The answer is no, but not just because the U.S. earned a 2-1 victory with two penalty-kick goals from veteran winger Megan Rapinoe.

The answer is no because Spain chose to battle the U.S. with a physical style borrowed from the likes of Rick Pitino: Foul so many times the ref can't call them all. It was a cynical approach that left American forward Alex Morgan prone on the grass throughout the early evening at Stade Auguste-Delaune in Reims; though she was the most frequent target of Spain’s central defenders, she was not alone.

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So it was somewhat fitting that Spain departed the Women's World Cup as the result of two penalty calls against them, the second coming with the score tied in the 71st minute when U.S. midfielder Rose Lavelle was pursuing a drop-off from Alex Morgan near the top of the box and Spain’s Virginia Torricella kicked her in the right shin. Lavelle went to the ground, and referee Katalin Kulcsar signaled toward the penalty spot.

"I did get kicked. I didn’t flop," Lavelle told Goal.com's Seth Vertelney. "So I figured if she saw the contact, then it would be a foul."

After a VAR review of roughly three minutes, Kulcsar returned from the pitch-side video monitor and affirmed her decision to award the penalty. Initially, before the monitor review, Morgan had indicated she wanted to take the decisive penalty. Afterward, it was Rapinoe who was standing over the ball and ready to fire. She launched a sizzling shot inside the left post, the same spot she had picked out for her first attempt, and goalkeeper Sandra Panos couldn't stop it even though she'd chosen to dive toward the correct side.

"Pinoe is our '1' on PKs. So I said to her: Did you give it to Alex? She said, 'Yeah,'" Coach Jill Ellis said following the match. "I said, 'I want you to take it.' No problem, no issue there, and obviously she tucked them both away. It was great."

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This became the second consecutive game in which midfielders Lavelle and Samantha Mewis dominated play with their ability to advance the ball, although neither was able to connect comfortably with Morgan or Rapinoe to generate goals from the run of play.

Rapinoe looked at times as though she was picking her spots on when to make runs, and that often allowed meaningful opportunities to lapse.

Morgan struggled with timing her runs against a high defensive line from Spain, which led to Lavelle and Mewis frequently holding back passes to avoid likely offside calls.

But Morgan’s biggest problem was a Spain defense that treated her like a tackling dummy throughout regulation. Spain committed 17 fouls, five against Morgan, and there was not a single yellow card issued for persistent infringement. There was only one yellow issued to Spain, in the 85th minute against Irene Paredes for a foul against Rapinoe along the left sideline.

"The heart and the grit and the resolve, that's a big part of World Cup soccer," Ellis said. "No game is ever easy in this tournament. We know that, we learned that, and so part of it is the mental piece. And I thought they were great tonight."

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Because the second penalty was not a total hatchet job by Torricella, just a clear foul in a circumstance that should have been avoided with her team in a tie game, there already are some complaints that the officiating favored the U.S.

This is preposterous.

The Americans committed five fouls in the game. That's one every 18 minutes. They played a clean game and were rewarded for it. Spain not only avoided the yellows they were earning, they also got away with a possible third penalty during a 90th-minute corner kick, when midfielder Jennifer Hermoso put a choke-hold on Rapinoe when she was making a near-post run. Kulcsar was behind the play and shielded by Hermoso’s back, and the assistant referee on the near sideline did not help out.

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Ellis was criticized by some in the media afterward for choosing to withhold midfielder Lindsay Horan from the starting lineup — ostensibly to protect her from picking up a yellow card that would exclude her from a quarterfinal matchup with France — and then sending her into the game late. It was dicey, given that midfielder Allie Long could have done the same work risk-free.

She also kept Morgan (85 minutes) and Rapinoe (90 +7) on for longer than might have been expected after the tie was broken. But Rapinoe was brilliant in helping the Americans to control the ball down the stretch.

The U.S. could have been better, but they also defeated a widely praised team that trampled the laws of the game to gain a tactical advantage. It worked, until it didn’t.

"I'm glass half-full,” Ellis said. "So I’m like, 'Holy (crap), that was awesome.'"

Mike DeCourcy

Mike DeCourcy Photo

Mike DeCourcy has been the college basketball columnist at The Sporting News since 1995. Starting with newspapers in Pittsburgh, Memphis and Cincinnati, he has written about the game for 35 years and covered 32 Final Fours. He is a member of the United States Basketball Writers Hall of Fame and is a studio analyst at the Big Ten Network and NCAA Tournament Bracket analyst for Fox Sports. He also writes frequently for TSN about soccer and the NFL. Mike was born in Pittsburgh, raised there during the City of Champions decade and graduated from Point Park University.