USWNT vs. Spain Live Score: Updates from Women’s World Cup

How to watch: Monday’s United States-Spain game at the Women’s World Cup is on Fox Sports (English) and Telemundo and NBCSN (Spanish). To find out who has the TV rights where you are, click here.

23’

Spain would very much like to slow this down.

The problem is that the United States isn’t letting them. Every time they win the ball it’s like a car peeling out of a high school parking lot. Lavelle just took a giveaway on a throw-in and raced up the middle. But with Heath on her right and Morgan chasing to catch up on the left, Lavelle goes left, too heavy, and the chance rolls harmlessly out of bounds.

Heath, ignored, put both hands to her forehead. “I’m running over here Rose ………”

16’

It’s end to end now.

Lavelle with a gorgeous pass that splits open the Spain defense and leads Rapinoe perfectly on the left wing. Rapinoe one-times it to Paños near post, but she gets down in time to parry it away. GREAT chance, but the teams are really flying now. The U.S. game is to stretch opponents and then carve them up, and it nearly worked to perfection there.

The Americans will need to move quickly, because whenever they slow up, Spain drops all 10 players behind the ball, clogging any gaps.

9’

SPAIN TIES IT!!! A mistake by Naeher!

Well that was fast. Naeher with a lazy clearance that catches Sauerbrunn short with Lucia Garcia closing her down. Garcia flicks it over to an open Jenni Hermoso, and she punishes Naeher from the top of the area. Wow, what a mistake.

That’s the first goal the United States has allowed at the World Cup after scoring 19, and Naeher will be kicking herself. She only has herself to blame there.

7’

GOAL! Rapinoe buries the penalty lower left.

That was a no-doubt: hard and low to the left-side netting. No chance for Paños.

It’s also the fourth game in a row the Americans have grabbed an early lead: 12th minutes against Thailand, 11th against Chile, 3rd against Sweden.

5’

PENALTY to the U.S.! Heath goes down in the area!

Heath cuts in from the right and Maria Léon just swipes her ankles. Clear penalty. Rapinoe wants it.

3’

Alex Morgan has been run down twice already.

Spain has clubbed her twice from behind already. But anything is better than letting her turn and start a counterattack, I guess. Morgan points this out to Kulcsar, who is probably it wasn’t her that knocked her down to be honest.

1’

That’s an odd start: the referee breaks up the first attack.

The referee, Katalin Kulcsar of Hungary, breaks up Spain’s first attack by getting in the way. She calls back play and does a drop ball.

Spain immediately takes the ball down the left side off the restart and sends in a cross. Becky Sauerbrunn clearly it weakly to the top of the area, and her reward is a hard Spain shot back in that hits her directly in the face. Ouch.

Today’s lineups: One big change for the United States

One big surprise in the United States lineup today: Lindsey Horan sits, replaced in midfield by the returning Julie Ertz (and also by Sam Mewis in a sense, since she stays). Horan has been excellent in France, scoring goals in each of her two starts and providing some two-way grit. But Sam Mewis has been as good, or better, and Ertz only missed the Sweden game because of a minor injury. Since Ellis wants Rose Lavelle’s speed and creativity going forward in attack, that has always meant a three-player puzzle for the two midfield spots alongside her between Ertz, Horan and Mewis. Today, Horan loses out. It would not be a surprise to see her later, hungry and eager to have a go at a tiring Spain defense.

United States lineup: Alyssa Naeher, Crystal Dunn, Becky Sauerbrunn, Abby Dahlkemper, Kelley O’Hara; Julie Ertz, Sam Mewis, Rose Lavelle; Megan Rapinoe (c), Alex Morgan, Tobin Heath

Spain lineup: Sandra Paños; Marta Corredera, Irene Paredes (c), Maria León, Leila Ouahabi; Vicky Losada, Aleixa Putellas, Patri Guijarro, Virginia Torrecilla; Jenni Hermoso, Lucia García

A word about the weather.

It’s scorching in Reims today, where the sun is high, the breeze is absent and the temperature is expected to be about 90 degrees Fahrenheit for kickoff, which is 6 p.m. local time. My colleagues Andrew Keh and Jeré Longman confirm my expert analysis that it is capital H hot.

That could be a factor. The United States is the oldest team in the tournament, but it also is one of the fittest. The Americans also are among the deepest squads in the field, so Jill Ellis will have plenty of talent to call upon if she needs it. Christen Press and Mallory Pugh against a tiring defense is a matchup she surely likes. As midfielder Rose Lavelle said Sunday, “The strength of this team is we have a lot of strengths.”

Still, Spain has had three extra days of rest since its previous game, and its players are no strangers to playing in the heat.

“We can’t control what our opponent has” for rest, Ellis said. “Everything is about us.”

A bit of history on the U.S.-Spain rivalry.

To be frank, there really isn’t one. The teams have played only once, in January in Alicante a few days after the Americans lost a friendly against France. The United States won that day, on a goal by Christen Press. Here are the highlights:

While the United States has made at least the semifinals in every World Cup, Spain, which made its World Cup debut four years ago, is in the knockout rounds for the first time. That made its pretournament friendlies — wins over the Netherlands and Brazil, defeats to England and the United States — critically important.

“Playing against the best team in the world for the first time made us understand what playing against such fast players, with great technique in a well-learned system would mean,” Spain Coach Jorge Vilda said after Spain’s final game of the group stage. “This is something we studied. This is a game where any single detail can change things so we’re going to look at what we’ve done and try and correct our mistakes.”

On Sunday, he welcomed the challenge.

“When the girls will look at the players in front of them, they’re not going to see stars, they’re going to see a team like any other,” Vilda said. “They are a good team. But we also are a team that has been known to be up to the challenge.”

What’s next for the winner today?

The winner of today’s U.S.-Spain match in Reims advances to a quarterfinal against France on Friday at Parc des Princes in Paris. But France looked shaky in beating Brazil in extra time on Sunday to reach the game, and beating them is increasingly looking like an achievable goal.

When France won in Paris on opening night, raining goals on South Korea and bathing in the cheers of a full house, it looked to be the odds-on favorite to win the World Cup. But that match now feels like the high point of Les Bleues’ journey, which since has seen a tight V.A.R.-aided win against Norway, a narrow V.A.R.-aided win over Nigeria, and an uncomfortably close extra-time victory against Brazil.

Yes, France has won every match. But something seems off.

“In the first half especially, our group was very nervous,” Corinne Diacre, France’s coach, said after beating Brazil. “I asked them at halftime to play more freely and enjoy themselves. They were putting so much pressure on themselves that they forgot the fundamentals, and we were facing a very good team.”

The opponents will only get better from here, but Diacre, who is under immense pressure to deliver France’s first major trophy, still thinks her players are up to the task.

“I cannot say that I totally recognized my team tonight individually, but we did what we had to do defensively and collectively,” she said. “It was not exceptional but, despite all that, we went out and found what we needed to get the victory.”