The USWNT has been poor but the players aren't panicking - ESPN

MELBOURNE, Australia — Fresh off their worst group stage in Women's World Cup history, the U.S. women's national team enters the knockout stage looking like an imposter of the team that won the World Cup four years ago.

The problems for this USWNT have been well-documented, and they are myriad. They fail to put shots on target or score goals. They struggle to pass the ball or maintain possession for any sustained amount of time. They lack creativity and are too predictable. The players look tight and joyless. And so on.

But here's the caveat: this is still the U.S. women's national team, and they can still beat Sweden to advance through this tournament — and maybe win the whole darn thing.

«There's no secret that their group games didn't go exactly like they wanted,» said Sweden defender Nathalie Björn. «But that's the thing with the USA: you can never count them out.»

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Indeed, the USWNT has never failed to reach the semifinals of a World Cup. Even when their performances were bad enough in 2015 that some former players called for then-coach Jill Ellis to be fired, the team still kept advancing and eventually won the tournament.

Of course, even in 2015, results somehow fell their way — they won two of their group stage games, drawing one. In this group stage, the USWNT won just once against Vietnam, drawing against Netherlands and Portugal. Before this tournament, the U.S. had never won fewer than two games or earned fewer than six points in a Women's World Cup group stage.

But the results aren't far from falling the USWNT's way here, either. For as ugly as the soccer has been, there's been a fine line between the mediocre results the USWNT has gotten and the