{"id":9117,"date":"2024-03-11T02:50:54","date_gmt":"2024-03-11T02:50:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/voiceofmelange.global\/?p=9117"},"modified":"2024-03-11T02:50:54","modified_gmt":"2024-03-11T02:50:54","slug":"the-battle-tested-usa-confront-free-scoring-brazil-in-the-gold-cup-final","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/voiceofmelange.global\/?p=9117","title":{"rendered":"\u2018The ‘battle-tested’ USA confront free-scoring Brazil in the Gold Cup final."},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Miami : The Queens of North and South America women\u2019s soccer will clash when the United States take on Brazil in the CONCACAF Women\u2019s Gold Cup final.The USA, four-time World Cup winners and four-time Olympic champions, have long dominated the game in North America but have looked increasingly vulnerable in the past two years.Following their shock exit in the last eight at the World Cup last year, the team is undergoing a partial rebuild before new coach Emma Hayes takes over in June, in time for the Paris Olympics.With interim head coach Twila Kilgore in charge of the tournament, the U.S. lost to Mexico in its final group stage match and edged Canada on penalties in Wednesday\u2019s rain-soaked semifinals.Although Brazil\u2019s World Cup and Olympic record is more modest, they have won eight of the nine Copa America tournaments they have entered and impressed at the Gold Cup.After winning all three of their group stage encounters, they beat Argentina 5-1 in the quarters before beating Mexico 3-0.Creative abilityThose performances make the U.S. well aware that they can take nothing for granted at San Diego\u2019s Snapdragon Stadium. \u201cI think it\u2019s a team with a lot of talent, with a lot of creative ability, with a lot of technical ability,\u201d American midfielder Sam Coffey said.\u201cI think they also play with a lot of passion, a lot of fire. I think they have that more than any opponent we\u2019ve played so far\u2026we\u2019re excited to go up against them.\u201d \u201d she added.Goals have not been hard to find for the Brazilians, who have scored 15 in five games so far while conceding just once, with 11 different players finding the target.Forward Bia Zaneratto, who recently joined Kansas City in the US NWSL, is the main attacking threat alongside Spain-based Gabi Nunes, but the Brazilian\u2019s fluid approach makes them a tricky opponent to neutralize.\u201cWe\u2019re not just looking at one or two players. We have to be ready for anyone and anything or any lineup,\u201d USA defender Naomi Girma said.\u201cI think we\u2019re in the best position we could be going into this final because we\u2019re battle-tested by different opponents, different weather, different factors, and I think moving forward just puts us in a position. a position where we went through the fire and came out stronger,\u201d she added.\u201cSometimes it was tough like after Mexico (defeat), but I think we saw so many different scenarios and situations in this tournament and we were better because of it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Miami : The Queens of North and South America women\u2019s soccer will clash when the United States take on Brazil in the CONCACAF Women\u2019s Gold Cup final.The USA, four-time World… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":9118,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[76,75],"class_list":["post-9117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-fifa","tag-football"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/voiceofmelange.global\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/voiceofmelange.global\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/voiceofmelange.global\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voiceofmelange.global\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voiceofmelange.global\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9117"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/voiceofmelange.global\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9117\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9119,"href":"https:\/\/voiceofmelange.global\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9117\/revisions\/9119"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voiceofmelange.global\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/voiceofmelange.global\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voiceofmelange.global\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voiceofmelange.global\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}