Women’s World Cup: Brazil suffer shock exit as draw sends Jamaica through
Jamaica are through to the World Cup last 16 for the first time after holding Brazil to a goalless draw in their final group match.
The result means they have finished a point above Brazil, who have missed out on qualifying for the knockout stages for the first time since 1995.
A superb draw against tournament hopefuls France was followed by a win over Panama.
That put the Reggae Girlz a point ahead of Brazil going into today’s match but Brazil were still favourites to progress.
“We were not expected to be in the World Cup in 2019. The programme was fairly new and we said, ‘Oh, we’re in!’. It was like being deer in headlights,” Jamaica manager Lorne Donaldson said.
“We were very young and happy to be there. This time around we said, ‘Hey, we’re not just going to show up. We’re going to get out of the group.’ Our mentality was that nothing is impossible.”
Jamaica kept Brazil at bay superbly to shock their higher-ranked opponents. Marta was unable to add to her world-record 17 World Cup goals as the 37-year-old called time on an illustrious career which saw her named as World Player of the Year six times.
Debinha, Luana and Tamires all had chances too but saves from Jamaica goalkeeper Becky Spencer kept the match goalless.
Andressa had a superb chance to grab a late winner and send Brazil through in stoppage time when she pounced in the box but a superb Spencer save kept the ball out and time ran out on the Brazilians.
“There’s a lot of feelings of course,” said Brazil manager Pia Sundhage.
“In the locker room there’s many sad players and coaches.
“At the end of the day I’m responsible for the result. Of course I’m not alone, but the way we have worked and have prepared is something I need to look back on and see if we could have done things differently.
“We put in a lot of work, but at the end of the day it’s Jamaica [who progress]. It’s not a big distance between failure and success.”
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