There are a few things that can be known for certain. Canada, the Olympic champion, will not add a Women’s World Cup to its list of honors this year. Marta, the Brazilian star, will not end her career with the one international trophy that has eluded her. And Germany, somehow, managed to engineer its own exit despite winning its first game by six goals. Three superpowers, from three continents, are out.
At the end of two weeks, this World Cup has incontrovertibly delivered on its stated aim — to provide a stage on which women’s soccer’s simmering revolution might burst into life. That is about as far as the certainty stretches. Nigeria beat Australia. Colombia overcame Germany. The United States could not score against Portugal. Jamaica held France at bay.
That unpredictability, that sense of old hierarchies and longstanding orders being overturned on a daily basis, has illuminated the World Cup, of course. After 48 games — three quarters of the tournament — half of the teams have been sent home, and yet it feels as if the field of potential winners is broader than it was even two weeks ago.
In part, that is testament to the spirit, talent and organization of the teams — Jamaica, South Africa and Nigeria — that have gate-crashed what many had assumed would be a…
