Sophia Smith’s dramatic extra-time goal sends USWNT into Olympic final
The United States slogged on into the Olympic final.
It took 120 minutes and it was a second straight match that trended towards dull in the knockout stage for the USWNT.
But that will matter little if the U.S. comes home with gold medals around their necks, and they are now just one win away after defeating Germany, 1-0, in Lyon on Tuesday on Sophia Smith’s game-winner.
The U.S. will face the winner of Tuesday’s Spain-Brazil semifinal on Saturday in Paris and try to win their first Olympic gold since 2012 and fifth overall.
Mallory Swanson played in Smith five minutes into extra time, the young star striker chasing it down and producing a brilliant finish around Ann-Katrin Berger to give the United States a hard-earned lead.
It was the second straight match in the knockout stage that required extra time, and this one came with 25 tense minutes of hanging onto the lead.
Germany’s best chance came 119 minutes in, when Laura Freigang got her head to the ball after a free kick went into the wall. Instead of finding the net, though, Freigang drove the ball straight into the foot of Alyssa Naeher — the last, best chance for Germany bouncing the wrong way.
To the extent there were chances over the game’s first 94 minutes, they were few and far between, and generally tilted toward the U.S.
Rose Lavelle’s shot less than four minutes into the game, which produced a save out of Berger, stood as the game’s best for some time.
The United States gained some traction down the left side early, and generally had the better of the possession. But it struggled in finding a final through ball or productive shot, making for a lot of time with the ball that never amounted to much.
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Like against Japan in the quarterfinal, it also left the door open for a little too long in a match that turned a little too sluggish.
But similar to the first match against Germany in the group stage — which the USWNT won by a more palatable 4-1 margin — a team that has a more mature aura than it did last summer never let the game go beyond its control.
