BEVERLY HILLS, February 24, (THEWILL) – The sheer dominance of international female football by the United States Women’s National Team (USWNT) was again on display at the SheBelieves Cup of 2021. A selection of strong footballing nations sent their teams to compete for the trophy but an emphatically consistent American team rode triumphantly to the title. Again.
In the final match of the Cup, inspirational pink-haired captain of the USWNT, Megan Rapinoe, scored two first-half goals to lead the United States charge to a thorough trouncing of the Argentine ladies to win the cup with a 6-nil victory on Wednesday.
Such is the total domination of the sport by the USWNT that the team is undefeated in 37 games in a row overall and 53 on American soil. To put that into better perspective, the Americans have won by an average of four goals to five without allowing their net to be breached with any sort of regularity.
They have conceded only twice since June 2019 during the Women’s World Cup where they won the semi-final and final with clean sheets.
On Wednesday, for the final of the sixth SheBelieves competition, Carli Lloyd, Kristie Mewis, Alex Morgan and Christen Press all added to Rapinoe’s brace to earn the U.S. women the honour of becoming the first team to have three straight shutouts in the SheBelieves Cup.
It emphasised another dominant theme of the USWNT: high scoring victories. It will be too long to enumerate all the matches that the women have won with no less than six unreplied goals but they beat Puerto Rico 10-0 in February 2016, thrashed Colombia 7-0 in April of the same year and Trinidad and Tobago by the same scoreline in October 2018. Thailand got hammered 13-0 in June 2019 and Panama carted home eight in February last year.
On the path to this successful defence of their title, the U.S. team blanked Canada in the round-robin tournament opener and then downed Brazil 2-0 on Sunday.
As the official highest ranked team in the FIFA/Coca Cola World Ranking of female teams in the world, the question on everyone’s lips now is which country’s female side will have the discipline, tactics, resolve and consistency to last long enough for a 90-minute period and end up beating this world-beating American team?
It does not appear to be possible today and for however long this collection of talented and cohesive units continues to rule the world of female football, their dominance is expected to progress undaunted and unabated.
Another question that easily comes to mind is: How long will that be?
About the Author
Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.
