KASHIMA, Japan — The U.S. women’s soccer team did not want to be here. Not again, three days after semifinal heartbreak, for an Olympic bronze medal match they’d all rather not be playing.
But here at the Ibaraki Kashima Stadium, they seemingly found something they’d been missing throughout this slog of a tournament. “I feel like we haven’t had our joy,” Megan Rapinoe said Monday. On Thursday, they found it.
Rapinoe in particular played with the freedom of a consolation game and the intensity of meaningful one — which is exactly what this was. She scored two audacious first-half goals, one directly from a corner, the other a volley picked straight out of the air.