Pete Kiehart for The New York Times
LYON, France — The stadium was ready, the teams were ready and the fans were ready. What no one knew as kickoff approached on Tuesday at the Stade de Lyon was that Megan Rapinoe was not ready.
The reason, it turned out, was quite simple: Rapinoe had sustained a minor hamstring strain in the Americans’ quarterfinal victory over France on Friday, and she and the team’s coaches and training staff decided that, regardless the stakes of the game, she was not ready to take part in Tuesday’s semifinal against England.