USWNT stunned by Canada in Olympic semifinal match

All 39 years of Carli Lloyd squatted to the ground, her head in her hands in disbelief that the march for gold at the Tokyo Olympics was over.

Megan Rapinoe approached her and patted her back, overpowering meaning and history baked into one moment.

“We’ve been in this a long time together. We’re both closer to the end than the beginning,” the 36-year-old Rapinoe said Monday night in her post-match TV interview after the U.S. women’s soccer team lost 1-0 to Canada in Kashima, Japan. “We’ve shared a lot of those happy moments on the field and not many sad moments, but we’ve had a few.”

They experienced one more sad moment — likely their last on the Olympic stage — as the Americans’ semifinal loss at Ibaraki Kashima Stadium knocked them out of contention for gold.

The U.S. women, reigning World Cup champs, have failed to reach the final game in back-to-back Olympics. They lost to Sweden in 2016 in Rio de Janeiro and now to Canada after a second-half penalty kick by Jessie Fleming.

Fleming’s 75th-minute goal was the difference, drilled past backup goalkeeper Adrianna Franch, who was in net after U.S. goalie Alyssa Naeher had to leave due to a knee injury after about a half hour. But the goalkeeper was not the problem for an American team that never got going.

The U.S. lost to Sweden, 3-0, in the opening match of the Tokyo Games, which snapped a 44-game unbeaten streak, and they never looked quite comfortable. In five matches, they failed to score three times.

“I feel like we haven’t had our joy, a little bit. It just hasn’t flowed for us. It hasn’t been easy,” Rapinoe said following the defeat, as Canada got some retribution for a loss to the U.S. in a 2012 semifinal, in which a controversial handball led to the deciding goal. “I think we’ve tried to find it — it’s not for lack of effort or anyone not giving everything they have. … It just didn’t click for us.”

Canada earned the victory Monday with a penalty that was not originally called on the field. Video-assisted referees helped determine that American defender Tierna Davidson had fouled Canadian forward Deanne Rose in the box. They converged upon a bouncing ball that Davidson tried to clear, but instead her leg hit Rose’s, and the Canadian fell to the turf.

Fleming, given the penalty kick, then drilled it into the corner of the goal, even though Franch guessed the correct side.

The Americans nearly tied it in the 86th minute, when a header from Lloyd banged off the crossbar, but that was as close as they came.

“One of the greatest players that’s ever pulled this jersey on,” Rapinoe said, while tearing up, of Lloyd, who is in her fourth Olympics and the oldest player on the team. “Who knows, it might not be her last Olympics, but it probably is. Obviously we want to send everybody out on the happiest note, and we weren’t able to do that today.”

Canada, which beat the U.S. for the first time since 2001 and has won bronze in two straight Games, will play Sweden, a 1-0 winner over Australia, in the gold medal match Friday.

The Americans will play Australia for bronze on Thursday.

“It’s not the color we want,” Rapinoe said. “But there’s still a medal on the line.”