That’s all for tonight. Thanks for following along and be sure to check back Friday for our minute-by-minute coverage of the semi-final matches.
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Here’s the match report off tonight’s final women’s quarter-final.
The call of the game-winning penalty from the inestimable Andrés Cantor is, unsurprisingly, worth a listen.
🗣 ¡GRÍTALO @USWNT!
— Telemundo Deportes (@TelemundoSports) July 30, 2021
🤩 ¡CELÉBRENLO POR LO ALTO!
🦸 @mPinoe se convirtió en la heroína de #USA en la tanda de penales
😎 Así le daba el pase a semis
⬇️ REVIVE este gran momento ⬇️#OlimpicosTelemundo #JuegosOlimpicos #Tokyo2020 pic.twitter.com/9ecdh7oMO9
What a game! Here’s a look at the official match report from today’s contest:
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The United States have reversed their Rio heartbreak and assured themselves of a medal. But which color? The journey to that answer will begin on Friday when the Americans face Canada in a border war with a spot in the Olympic final on the line.
Final: Netherlands 2-2 USA (2-4 pens)
Rapinoe smashes it past the keeper’s left side into the goal and the United States are headed to the semi-finals! Netherlands 2-2 USA (2-4)
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Nouwen takes a stutter step than sends it to Naeher’s right and she makes the save! It’s her third save of the night from the spot! Netherlands 2-2 USA (2-3)
Press rolls it to the keeper’s right and into the goal. Clinical. Netherlands 2-2 USA (2-3)
van der Gragt hits to Naeher’s right and it’s in off the post. Fortunate! Netherlands 2-2 USA (2-2)
Morgan sidefoots to the keeper’s left and in. Beautifully taken. Netherlands 2-2 USA (1-2)
Janssen calmly sidefoots to Naeher’s left as the keeper guesses right. Netherlands 2-2 USA (1-1)
Lavelle pounds it to the keeper’s right and the US are on the board! Netherlands 2-2 USA (0-1)
Miedema slots it to Naeher’s right and the American makes the save! Netherlands 2-2 USA (0-0)
Miedema (two goals today, 10 in the tournament) will take the first penalty ...
Extra time full-time: Netherlands 2-2 USA
There’s the whistle and the final semi-final spot in the Olympic women’s football tournament will be determined by spot kicks!
120 min: One minute of stoppage time. Horan runs on goal and takes a shot from distance rather than lay off to Rapinoe, but it’s high over the crossbar.
119 min: Press is in on goal but the attack is thwarted and it goes out for a corner. Rapinoe’s low service is initially cleared but falls to Horan, whose shot from a dangerous area sails over the crossbar.
118 min: Rapinoe runs onto a long ball and has a go on goal from distance but misses the frame. Out for a goal kick.
116 min: O’Hara is shown yellow for a foul and the Dutch will have a free kick. It’s cleared but the Dutch maintain possession and reset their attack.
114 min: A terrible mix-up in the back catches the Dutch keeper off her line and the ball goes through to Morgan, who rolls it in for a goal. But the flag is up again for a ninth disallowed goal! The replay does show Morgan was in an offside position when Rapinoe initially played it forward, though.
110 min: Rapinoe lobs a long pass into the area as Press runs on. She takes one touch and rips a shot into the back of the net. A 109th-minute winner for Press ... but the flag belatedly goes up! VAR will take a look and after about 45 seconds, the call is upheld. It’s an eighth disallowed goal for the US at these Olympics.
106 min: Fifteen more minutes to determine a winner ... or spot kicks await. The US immediately win a corner and Rapinoe will take it. It’s easily cleared and Dunn, who had crept up into the attack, chases it back in a dead sprint.
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Extra time half-time: Netherlands 2-2 USA
The Dutch have been the better team for at least 45 minutes, maybe longer. The pressure the US were able to get on the ball throughout the first half feels like a distant memory.
105 min: A long cross from nearly the halfway line is sent in to Press but she can’t redirect it on target. Two minutes of stoppage time added on.
104 min: Martens sends a cross in to Miedema, whose header is saved by Naeher! It’s out for a corner. Martens send it to the near post and after a couple of dangerous minutes it’s headed out for another corner. This time the US clears it.
103 min: Alex Morgan goes down in a tangle with Groenen and is whistled for a foul. She’s down for about half a minute but makes it to her feet and will continue.
99 min: The US have been inaccurate and imprecise moving forward for long stretches since the half-time break as yet another short-circuited attack shows.
97 min: ... and the call stands. No goal. Another Dutch substitution follows: Victoria Pelova is in for Roord.
94 min: Beerensteyn is in on goal amid a quick Dutch counterattack, but Dunn is there to disrupt it. It’s out for a corner. It’s taken quickly and after a bit of chaos in the area, it bounces off the crossbar straight up and down where Beerensteyn heads it into the goal. The flag immediately goes up to Dutch protests. We will have a VAR review ...
93 min: Miedema has a go on goal from the edge of the era, hitting it powerfully but directly at Naeher, who corrals it easily.
91 min: We’re under way in extra time. A quick statistical note: Vivianne Miedema, who’s hit for two goals today, is the first woman to score 10 times in a single Olympic Games. The last man to reach double figures was Hungary’s Ferenc Bene, who scored a record 12 goals at the last Tokyo Games in 1964.
Full-time: Netherlands 2-2 USA
There’s the whistle and 30 minutes of extra time awaits!
90 min+4: van de Donk chops down O’Hara near the touch line and is shown yellow for her efforts. The US will have a free kick from some distance in the dying minutes of regular time. Rapinoe steps over it, but her service drifts harmlessly wide of the goal. Wasteful.
90 min+2: A Dutch attack is thwarted by the US center back pairing and the Americans are quick into the counterattack ... but Press can’t get past the last line of defense and it’s cleared back to the middle third.
90 min: The fourth official signals for five minutes of added time, mostly to account for the two VAR reviews.
89 min: A bit of chaos in front of the Netherlands goal. Rapinoe runs at the Dutch right back, an action that nearly results in an own goal, and ends up winning a corner. She takes it but sends it sailing past the far post away from danger.
88 min: Now Beerensteyn is down in a heap in front of the US goal as the training staff comes out to attend her. The other 19 outfield players all scurry to the touchline for a water break. Beerensteyn is helped to her feet and walks off past the goal line. It looks like she will be substituted off at the first opportunity.
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86 min: Beerensteyn manages to beat Dahlkember and lobs a cross into the center of the area for a waiting van de Donk, whose header just misses the goal. Another moment of danger for the US, who have been outshot by a 6-2 margin since half-time.
PENALTY SAVED! Netherlands 2-2 USA
81 min: O’Hara takes down Beerensteyn as the ball is crossed into the area and the referee immediately points to the spot. It’s penalty for the Netherlands. Huge moment! Martens steps up to take it, waits a moment as VAR upholds the call, then takes the shot ... and it’s saved by Naeher! A massive bullet dodged by the Americans, who were staring down elimination only to find new life!
78 min: van de Donk goes down after an overzealous challenge by Horan and the American is shown a yellow card.
74 min: The US have won their fourth corner. Five American attackers line up at the back of the penalty area. Rapinoe takes it but the referee whistles for a foul and the danger is averted.
69 min: Groenen releases Beerensteyn into the area, maybe overcooking the through ball a touch. She tries to turn it on goal and it takes an awkward deflection off a US defender, but Naeher is able to settle the situation.
66 min: The VAR official is taking a look at this goal. It was close, but is there enough evidence to overturn it? The booth is taking an awfully long time with this ruling. More than a minute. In the interim, the US make another switch: Megan Rapinoe comes in for Heath. And, at last, the American’s seventh (!) disallowed goal of the tournament remains disallowed and play resumes.
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63 min: The Netherlands make their first switch: van de Sanden exits for Beerensteyn, who has three goals in this tournament. Only seconds later, Morgan sends a ball across for Press, who pounds it into the back of the net ... but the flag is up!
61 min: Lavelle wins possession at midfield and sends a ball through to Press, who goes for goal ... but it’s saved easily by Van Veenendaal.
60 min: It’s not so much taking off both goalscorers, it’s the fact Williams’s work rate along the right flank has been so effective for the Americans. Instead the wholesale line change suggests the US will continue to run and run and run some more at the Netherlands.
58 min: It’s a triple substitution for Vlatko Andonovski. Mewis, Lloyd and Williams makes way for Christen Press, Alex Morgan and Rose Lavelle.
GOAL! Netherlands 2-2 USA (Miedema 55)
Miedema, who’s had so few touches today, gets past Ertz and launches a shot toward the goal. Naeher manages to get a hand on it but it manages its way the past the line. That’s 10 goals in less than four complete games for the Arsenal star!
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53 min: Horan sends a gorgeous ball through Lloyd who is clear on goal with a pair of Dutch players in her wake, but the attempt is not well-taken and saved.
51 min: Miedema, who’s had maybe four or five touches of the ball all game (though one of those resulted in a goal), has popped out a bit wider than she was playing in the first half.
49 min: The US front three continue to close quickly on the Dutch back line. Very aggressive.
46 min: The US kick off to start the second half and, immediately, four or five American players sprint downfield into an attacking position as the team looks to work it up from the back. It doesn’t seem they’re content to sit on this lead.
While we wait for the second half to start, here’s Suzanne Wrack’s report from the Team GB-Australia goalfest. Three of the last four are now set: Australia, Sweden and Canada. Either the Netherlands or the United States will join them. Forty-five minutes (or longer?) to decide.
Half-time: Netherlands 1-2 USA
And there’s the whistle. The Dutch struck first against the run of play through the sensational Miedema, but the US hit back twice in three minutes through Mewis and Williams and head to the locker rooms ahead on merit.
45 min: The fourth official signals for two minutes of added time.
43 min: The Netherlands win a corner and it’s initially cleared before getting worked back in the direction of the goal. A Dutch player manages to head it toward the target but it’s easily corralled by Naeher.
40 min: The high-pressure attacking football of the United States has the Dutch on their heels. They continue to have trouble clearing the ball from danger, a woe that was directly responsible for the Americans’ second goal. The outside backs Dunn and O’Hara, in particular, have been very active in the attack, pushing up the flanks into the final third. It’s all worked so far, but they’d do well to not leave Dahlkemper and Sauerbrunn exposed against the dangerous Dutch front line.
35 min: More high pressure from the US as play restarts. They continue to win possession and mostly keep it at will.
Elsewhere, Australia have just eliminated Team GB in another quarter-final match, winning 4-3 after extra time. It was 2-2 after 90 minutes before Australia scored through May Fowler in the 104th and Sam Kerr in the 106th. Ellen White completed a hat trick only minutes later but the Matildas hung on and they’re into the last four.
GOAL! Netherlands 1-2 USA (Williams 30)
Only moments after her assist, the ball falls to Williams among a forest of Dutch players but she pounds a right-footed shot into the back of the goal. The four-time world champions have come roaring back thanks to the efforts of a player who came into today’s match having logged only 16 minutes in the tournament so far!
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GOAL! Netherlands 1-1 USA (Mewis 28)
Lynn Williams receives a pass along the right flank, beats her marker and sends a cross into the area, where a diving Sam Mewis meets it with her head and sends it into the net for the equalizer! What a response!
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26 min: Lloyd wins a foul on the edge of the area and the US will have a free kick from four or five yards outside of the penalty area. Heath takes it but it goes off a US player past the goal line for a goal kick.
24 min: The US win their second corner of the match. It’s taken poorly by Heath, targeted toward the near post but arriving well short of it and cleared from danger by the Dutch.
21 min: The US pick up where they left off before the goal, keeping possession of the ball and trying to build up from the back.
GOAL! Netherlands 1-0 USA (Miedema 18)
On only her second touch of the match, Miedema receives a pass in traffic in the center of the area, quickly finds her bearings and fires it past Naeher for a goal against the run of play. It’s her ninth goal of the tournament and the perfect celebration for her 100th cap.
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17 min: The US are enjoying a 57-43 edge in possession. An offensive verve that we haven’t really seen in this tournament is flowing from the aggressive defensive tactics.
14 min: The defensive press is really dictating the tempo and putting the screws to the Dutch early now. Just now, Lloyd lays it off to Williams on the right edge of the area, whose cross finds the head of an onrushing Horan. And it’s a brilliant save by Van Veenendaal!
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12 min: Ertz, who’s played the third-most minutes of anyone on the US team at this tournament despite coming back from an MCL injury, is down after getting the wind knocked out of her. But after a minute she’s up and the US will have a free kick from near the halfway line.
10 min: Heath runs onto a through ball from Ertz up the right flank, takes a touch then pounds it past Van Veenendaal into the back of the goal ... but the flag is up. Not but much, but the replay confirms she was indeed off.
9 min: No real threat of a chance for either side in the early going as the ball has mostly occupied the middle third. The high-pressing US continues to try and challenge the Netherlands’ compact 4-3-3 but no luck so far.
5 min: The Ajax center back van der Gragt is slow to her feet after a mid-air collision with Heath, but she’s OK. A very high press from the Americans win the ball back almost immediately. The tactic looks even more aggressive after the 90-minute cure for insomnia the United States and Australia put us through on Tuesday.
1 min: And we’re under way from Yokohama! The Americans are attacking from right to left in white shirts and blue shorts, while the Dutch are going from left to right and in all-orange strips. And only seconds in, we’re already seeing what appears to be high press from the US team.
Canada have survived a penalty shootout against Brazil to reach to the Olympic semi-finals. As mentioned, they will get the winner of Netherlands-USA, which is set to kick off a few minutes from now.
Friday’s quarter-final matchup will be the ninth meeting all-time between the USA and the Netherlands. Additionally, it will be the second matchup between the two countries in the knockout rounds of a major world championship. The first came on 7 July 2019, when the USA won 2-0 in Lyon, France, to capture the 2019 Women’s World Cup title. Megan Rapinoe converted a penalty kick in the 61st minute and Rose Lavelle added an epic finish in the 69th to secure the USWNT their fourth star.
The most recent meeting between the teams came on 27 November 2020, a 2-0 win for the USA in Breda in the team’s first match in 261 days after a long pause in programming due to the Covid-19 pandemic. A first-half goal from Lavelle and a second-half score from Kristie Mewis proved to be the difference as the USA closed their 2020 campaign with a victory.
Overall, the United States lead the series with a record of 8-1-0, their lone loss to the Dutch coming in a 4-3 defeat during the first matchup between the teams in 1991. Since then, the USA have won the last eight games, though each of the last five meetings between the teams has been decided by two goals.
The winner of this quarter-final will advance to face either Canada or Brazil in the semi-finals on Monday in Kashima. That match just ended in a 0-0 draw after 120 minutes and is headed to penalties.
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The Netherlands have made a roaring start to their first ever Olympics. They have already surpassed the Olympic tournament record with 21 total goals in a 10-3 win over Zambia, a 3-3 draw with Brazil and an 8-2 victory over China. The 21 goals are 12 more than any other team in the tournament. The previous single-tournament high was 16 goals, set by the United States during their run to gold at the 2012 Olympics in London.
Seven different players have scored for the Dutch, led by star forward Vivianne Miedema, who has found the back of the net an Olympic-record eight times. She scored four goals against Zambia, two against Brazil and two against China.
Miedema’s eight goals have broken the Olympic record of six previously held by Canada’s Christine Sinclair for her performance at London 2012. Her four-goal effort also tied the Olympic single-game scoring record, matching Germany’s Birgit Prinz, who scored four goals against China during the 2004 Olympics.
With 81 international goals, Miedema is not only the leading scorer on the Netherlands Olympic roster, but the top scorer in the history of the Netherlands women’s national team with 81 scores in 99 career caps. She will make her 100th international appearance today against the United States, making her the fourth woman on the Dutch roster with 100 or more caps.
Forward Lieke Martens is the most experienced player on the roster with 126 international appearances and is second in scoring with 53 international goals. Reserve goalkeeper Loes Geurts (125 caps) and van de Donk (117) have also eclipsed the 100-cap milestone for the Dutch.
Martins has tallied four times, forward Lineth Beerenstetyn has three, forward Sherice Van de Sanden has two, as does midfielder Victoria Pelova. Jill Roord and Dominique Janssen (who was Dominique Bloodworth during the World Cup) have each scored once.
Overall, the Netherlands’ Olympic roster features 11 of the 13 players who saw action against the United States during the 2019 Women’s World Cup final, including captain and goalkeeper Sari van Veenendaal, who played a fine match against the USA in Lyon. Twelve of the 13 players who took the field against the USWNT in November 2020 are also on the Olympic roster.
The teams!
Here’s a look at today’s teams. USA coach Vlatko Andonovski makes five changes from the lineup that faced Australia on Tuesday in the final group-stage match: Abby Dahlkemper for Tierna Davidson in the back, Lindsey Horan for Rose Lavelle in the midfield, and a new forward line with Tobin Heath, Carli Lloyd and Lynn Williams replacing Megan Rapinoe, Alex Morgan and Christen Press.
It’s the fourth different lineup deployed by Andonovski in four matches at the Olympics.
Netherlands
XI: Van Veenendaal, van der Gragt, Wilms, Nouwen, Janssen, Groenen, van de Donk, Roord, Martens, Miedema, van de Sanden
Subs: Beerensteyn, Jansen, Kaagman, Kop, Pelova, van Dongen, Van Es
USA
XI: Naeher, O’Hara, Dahlkemper, Sauerbrunn, Dunn, Ertz, Sam Mewis, Heath, Horan, Lloyd, Williams
Subs: Franch, Lavelle, Kristie Mewis, Morgan, Press, Rapinoe, Sonnett
Preamble
Hello and welcome to International Stadium Yokohama for today’s Olympic quarter-final match between the Netherlands and the United States. The four-time world champions have navigated a sometimes-rocky course through group stage into the business end of the tournament, where a rematch of the 2019 Women’s World Cup final now awaits.
It’s been a somewhat uncharacteristic road for the Americans so far. They opened with a shock 3-0 defeat to Sweden – their first defeat in 30 months – before righting the ship with a 6-1 win over New Zealand. Then came Tuesday’s Group G finale against Australia, where the typically aggressive US team held back and settled for a 0-0 draw ensured they finished second behind Sweden but meant they were goalless in two of three games.
“Now that we are out of group play it’s a new page, it’s a new time for us to get beneath the surface,” US left back Crystal Dunn told the Guardian’s Suzanne Wrack. “We just have scratched the surface of what we can do in this tournament. So I’m excited for this game tomorrow because I know we’ll be hitting the ground running. It’s all or nothing in this moment. We did enough to get through group play and, yes, maybe it wasn’t our best style of play at all times, maybe we didn’t execute everything to our best ability, but at the same time we did enough.”
Today’s game marks the third time the World Cup finalists have met in the knockout rounds of the subsequent Olympics and the second such instance involving the USWNT. In 2012, the USA beat Japan, 2-1, in the Olympic final, avenging their loss on penalties at the 2011 World Cup. Brazil and Germany also met in the semi-finals of the 2008 Olympics one year after squaring off in the World Cup final.
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Bryan will be here shortly. In the meantime here’s Suzanne Wrack’s lookahead to today’s Olympic quarter-final.
