Sweden outlasts Brazil to reach gold-medal game
— -- RIO DE JANEIRO -- Track and field events in these Olympics take place a few miles away from the Maracana at the Olympic Stadium. But the first semifinal of the women's soccer tournament between Sweden and Brazil felt as much like a race against time as anything else.
Sweden tried to outlast the clock for 120 minutes and take its chances in a shootout.
Marta tried to outlast a lifetime of minutes to come up with a defining moment of glory for Brazil.
For both, the clock finally ran out.
Which goes a long way to explaining why Sweden will play for gold after edging Brazil 4-3 in a penalty shootout that followed 120 minutes of scoreless soccer. In front of 70,544 people in the Maracana, a voice vote suggesting almost all of them rooting for the host, Sweden absorbed, managed, dulled and finally escaped the Brazilian attack.
For the second game in a row, frustration reigned. For the second game in a row, following a quarterfinal shootout win against the reigning Olympic champion United States, Sweden ceded possession, soaked up shots and let what most will call a better team run itself out.
Although the language barrier makes it difficult to confirm, it didn't sound like anyone from Brazil called the Swedes "covardes" after the Europeans replicated their earlier stunner, right down to the Lisa Dahlkvist penalty that clinched it.
"It is a very different way of playing, I have to say that," allowed Sweden coach Pia Sundhage of the contrast with her past jobs, including the United States. "With the U.S. team it was attacking football, great personalities in the box. Now it's the other way around. If I mentioned Abby Wambach, to give an example, I will now mention Linda Sembrant and Nilla Fischer."
Those two defenders anchored the middle of a back line that was under siege from the outset, pressed by 11 Brazilian players and deafened by tens of thousands in the stands. They were stars on this day, if you cared to appreciate their work.
Take one sequence with a little more than half an hour gone. With the right back next to her threatened by one of Brazil's endless diagonal long passes that sought to slip behind the defense, Fischer had to step out to stop the advance. As if connected by a rope, Sembrant slid inside and was in position to deflect the ball then played toward what had a second earlier been open space.
Perhaps a minute later, as another wave of Brazilian possession washed over Sweden, it was Sembrant pulled wide to assist the left back vulnerable next to her. When Brazil's Beatriz then beat Sembrant, Fischer came across and timed a tackle to perfection to force a goal kick. The 32-year-old defender stayed down for a minute, then got up and limped on, a new attack surely imminent.
If this isn't the kind of soccer people think will sell the sport -- a team advancing with 35 percent of possession and 27 fewer shots than its opponent -- then so be it. But it ought to be the kind of athletic effort that is appreciated. There is no margin for error, no room for anything but collective effort.
"When I started coaching, I wanted to play attacking football and take a lot of chances," said Sundhage, noting that this included her time with the United States. "Now whatever team I have in front of me, I adjust my way of playing and try to coach that way because we need to get out the most of the players. If it's a lot of attacking, defending -- four in the back or five in the middle -- it doesn't matter. My job is to make sure that they want me to lead the team, to be the coach, and trust what we're doing. And in order to do that, I need to know the players."
For all of that effort expended, there was still a moment that seemed fit for the setting. After a foul on Brazil's Beatriz, Marta stood over a free kick in the 118th minute. A little more than 20 yards from goal, she had an opportunity to shake Brazil's most famous stadium with the kind of noise no woman ever generated on a soccer field in this soccer-mad country.
At 30, Marta is not the player she was even a few years ago, there are simply too many games on her legs. But she is still Marta, still able to show in bursts things that few if any other players can do. So many times Tuesday it felt like she was close to making it happen.
She swung her foot at history, but Sweden's organization left her with room only to bounce a shot into the waiting arms of goalkeeper Hedvig Lindahl. Marta made her final kick on the day count, burying the opening shot of the shootout, but even that noise was quickly dulled when Lotta Schelin, another star with more career behind her than ahead, answered in kind.
So Brazil, which drew nearly 150,000 fans to its final three games in three different cities, will play for bronze in Sao Paulo. But even with that game to play, and a medal in its own Olympics no insignificant prize, it felt like the end of a run Tuesday afternoon. Brazil coach Vadao was asked whether the next generation was ready if those 30 or older like Marta, Cristiane and the indomitable Formiga, playing in her sixth and final Olympics, will soon be gone.
"They're needed in order to pass this on to the new generation, especially considering there is little support in Brazil for women's football." Vadao said. "So this makes the replenishment a bit slow. So if you lose five, six, seven players, of course, this is going to affect the new generation. And a lot of hard work and effort will have to be put in to replacing them. It's not easy to replace the women, as opposed to the men, where the structure and the support is all there."
The Brazilian team should be judged by results. Pity support, a condescending pat on the head, is barely better than no support at all in any push for equality. At some point, it would oddly say more about the health of the women's game in Brazil if instead of cheers, the team left the field after a game like this to a chorus of boos. Or at least the background noise of grumbling.
But the team should also be judged based on its circumstances. Context does matter. And there was something inspirational about what this team tried to do. The starting lineup in the semifinal included players based in seven countries. The 33 players who started for the other semifinal teams were spread across just five countries. Granted, that's true for the Brazilian men, too, but they go abroad to seek their fortunes. The women do because it's their only choice to play.
"This loss won't take away from all that we have done to get here," Marta said in Portuguese. "We have the match for the bronze medal now, and we will fight until the end to get that medal. We have to pick up the pieces to try to win this medal."
Sweden's Sofia Jakobsson, who played her own role in the tactical success by stretching the field with fresh legs as a second-half substitute, counts several Brazilian players as close friends from her time on pro teams in Russia and now France.
"They are playing for home and in front of so many people out there," Jakobsson said. "I'm happy for our team, but I feel for them. But soccer is like that. One team wins and one team loses. I'm happy for us, but I'm sad for them."
A lot of people will be sad Brazil is out of the running for gold.
Yet the reasons to celebrate Brazil share common root with the reason to celebrate Sweden.
Take what you have and make something of it. And don't worry what anyone else says.
