The USWNT don’t experience enough hostility, which is why they needed to ‘come to Brazil’

It happens all the time: the referee awards a free kick in a team’s attacking third, and the player on the ball attempts to find a more favorable position before delivering.Who could begrudge U.S. women’s national team midfielder Rose Lavelle for seeking a marginal advantage in the 95th minute on Saturday when the U.S. played Brazil in Sao Paulo? The U.S. were trailing by a goal and Jaedyn Shaw, Lavelle’s club teammate at Gotham, had drawn a foul on the left, about 10 yards from the penalty box.About three minutes remained. As Lavelle prepared to take her free kick, she rolled the ball three paces away from the site of the foul toward the center of the pitch — that is, until Spanish referee Maria Eugenia Gil Soriano instructed her to return the ball to its original spot.Lavelle reluctantly complied. But as Soriano backed away, the U.S. midfielder nudged the ball back to where she wanted it. That’s when 31,336 onlookers raised the volume inside the Neo Química Arena, almost as if to say, “Hey, put that back.”What was conveyed, however, was even more incisive: “You can’t get away with that here. This is our house.”That much was clear as the hosts saw the game out to win 2-1, and will likely remain the case in tonight’s second meeting in Fortaleza at the Arena Castelão in the northeastern region of the country. And this, more than any cutting-edge technology or set-piece choreography, is the best training the USWNT will receive on its trip to where the World Cup will be held next year.Come to BrazilThe Brazil fans were loud and proud in Sao Paulo (Brad Smith/USSF/Getty Images)Before Saturday, the USWNT had not played against Brazil in Brazil since 2014. All of their matches have been staged in the U.S. or a neutral site, like the Parc des Princes in Paris for the 2024 Olympics gold medal match. The U.S. won 1-0 before a 2-0 success in their next meeting at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles on April 5 last year. Three days later at San Jose’s PayPal Park, Brazil struck back, overpowering the U.S. in stoppage time for a 2-1 win.