FIFA Women's World Cup Final ;U.S. Loses to Japan on Penalty Kicks ...‎

Japan's Homare Sawa leads the celebration after scoring the tying goal late in extra time against the U.S. Japan won the penalty kick, 3-1, to capture the title.FIFA Women's World Cup Final ;U.S. Loses to Japan on Penalty Kicks

Japan won the Women's World Cup for the first time on Sunday, stunning the United States in a penalty kick shootout after the team played a pulsating 2-2 tie in Frankfort, Germany.

Japan won its first Women's World Cup title Sunday in a triumph built on hope and renewal, lifting a stricken country and somehow finding a way to win a match that the United States dominated for long stretches but could not control.

"This is obviously going to hurt for a while," said U.S. forward Abby Wambach, whose only hole in her glittering career is the World Cup title.

The United States, the top-ranked team in the world, played its best game of the tournament but struggled to convert its many chances into a tangible advantage. The Americans did not take a lead until Alex Morgan scored on a breakaway in the 69th minute. But a defensive mistake allowed Japan's Aya Miyama to pounce on a loose ball and tie the score with less than 10 minutes left in regulation.

The Americans' top scorer, Abby Wambach, appeared to score the winning goal just before the end of the first extra period, nodding in a cross from Morgan from point-blank range -- her fourth goal in four games. But Japan's captain, Homare Sawa, flicked in a shot off a corner kick in the 117th minute. The goal seemed to symbolize the never-say-die attitute of the Japanese team, which had gained strength from its countrymen -- and vice versa -- in representing a country still recovering from a devastating earthquake earlier this year.

The shootout went badly for the United States from the start. Shannon Boxx's attempt was saved, Carli Lloyd's sailed over the bar, and Tobin Heath had hers saved as well.

Sawa, playing in her fifth World Cup, won the Golden Ball as the tournament's top player and the Golden Boot as its top scorer.

Japan, meanwhile, coolly connected on three of its first four. When the 20-year-old defender Saki Kumagai fired hers over the diving American goalkeeper Hope Solo, she and her nation rejoiced as one.

"We couldn't put away our chances," U.S. Coach Pia Sundhage said. "It's a final -- there's a small difference between winning and losing."

Said Wambach: "Evidently it wasn't meant to be."

Abby Wambach U.S. women to World Cup title

FRANKFURT, Germany -- Abby Wambach's halftime instructions to her teammates were simple and insistent: Just put the ball on the back post. We'll get a goal.

When the 79th minute arrived in a 1-1 tie with France in the Women's World Cup semifinals, Lauren Cheney prepared to serve a corner kick. The French had dominated possession. The United States hung on tenuously. Cheney spotted Wambach, whose eyes were imploring, saucer-like.

"You can tell when Abby's seeing red," Cheney said.

The kick floated to the far post as directed. Wambach charged forward and nodded the ball downward, her head punching like a fist, putting the Americans ahead in an eventual 3-1 victory Wednesday and giving them passage to the World Cup final here today against Japan.

At 5-foot-11 and 170 pounds, with impeccable technique, anticipation and fearless determination, Wambach is considered the best header in women's soccer. Forty-nine of her 121 career international goals — 40 percent — have been scored with her head. Given that Japan has only two players as tall as 5-7, today's final might be decided not by anyone's dexterous foot but by the glancing accuracy of Wambach's forehead.

"If you want to stop her, you have to push and pull on her jersey before she starts to run," said Sonia Bompastor , a French defender. "When she moves forward, she's unstoppable."

At 31, Wambach has long been full of brawny assertion. She won the 2004 Athens Olympics for the United States with a header in overtime of the gold medal game against Brazil. Yet she views her career as incomplete.

She broke her leg and missed the 2008 Beijing Olympics as her teammates won another gold medal. The World Cups in 2003 and 2007 ended prematurely for Wambach and the U.S. in the semifinals. This might be her final chance to play in soccer's most important tournament.

"I would give up every goal I've scored to win this World Cup," Wambach said. "You have to be willing to give up everything."

That same bold abandon is required to proficiently head a soccer ball, one of the sport's most potentially dangerous yet valuable skills. Not only is proper technique required -- upper body arched, shoulders squared to the target, chest and neck snapping forward, head striking the ball at the hairline -- but so is courage in the face of a possible collision with a goalkeeper or with the goalpost.

"A lot of it is determination and will -- 'I don't care who is in the way,'" said Jim Gabarra, who coached Wambach in two professional leagues. "Some players have that fear: Is someone going to hit me in the air? Is the goalkeeper going to punch me in the head? Will I land funny?" Wambach traces her bravery and competitiveness to familial necessity, having grown up as the youngest of seven children in Rochester. To her four brothers, Abby was less a sister than a live-in goalie.

When she was 6 or 7, her brothers dressed her in pads and peppered her with slap shots in a neighborhood cul-de-sac. When her father, Peter, who had been a wrestler and a runner, asked how many goals she scored in a soccer game and she said three, he asked, "Why not four?"

"My mom would literally lock us out of the house and say go play," Wambach said. "We wouldn't be able to come in, not even to pee. I feel like I was kind of bred in some ways to do what I do now."

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