One of the worst ways to lose a game is when you score for the other team, and to the English Women's National Team, that's how their semifinal match ended against Japan yesterday.

England had been playing extremely well against the favored Japanese squad all match. It was tied 1-1 going into stoppage time, and all that had to happen to force extra time was for both teams to play out the final four minutes after the 90' mark. That's it. Then we would have had 30 minutes of free soccer.

But then... this happened to England (in the white jerseys).

As a former soccer player, I almost shed a tear for the English defender who made the own goal. It's hard to be mad at her because she was trying hard to make a play. Her name is Laura Bassett. She was trying to make a great defensive play. Japan were pushing up field hard and caught Bassett a little too far up field. They tried to take advantage of Bassett being out of position, but she was able to hustle and get a foot on a through ball that looked like was going to connect with the Japanese forward.

Bassett extended her leg to do kick the ball out over the endline to force a Japanese corner kick (the smart play in that instance), but unfortunately, the ball found the net, and sealed England's fate in the 2015 rendition of the Women's World Cup.

Now, Japan will face the USA in the World Cup Final on Sunday.

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