MELBOURNE, Australia — Megan Rapinoe’s storybook World Cup career ended “just like a sick joke.”
It gave her the highest of highs, trophies and celebrity, memories and indescribable joy, but it ended here at the Melbourne Rectangular Stadium with what she later called “dark humor.”
She’d stepped up to a penalty spot, a location she’d mastered throughout her decades in soccer. She strode toward a stationary ball, with an opportunity to give the U.S. a commanding shootout lead over Sweden. “I honestly can't remember the last time I missed a penalty,” she later said, so there was only one thought in her mind: “I'm gonna score.