Michael Ventre

Nobody likes to lose. It makes your cereal taste soggy and your bed feel lumpy. Depending on the circumstances and what's at stake, losing can remain in your system like a parasite. There is no known cure, other than to go out and win the next time around.

But I have to issue the U.S. women’s soccer team a special waiver, to be used just this once. It’s not because losing is acceptable. It’s just that, considering everything, it’s not as stomach-churning as it could have been.

The U.S. women deserve a few gentle noogies today for squandering a raft of opportunities in their World Cup final Sunday against Japan. In another sporting context, you might be tempted to give them even more of a scolding. In the first half alone, they probably could have been ahead, 5-0, or so, if shots had gone a foot or two this way or that.

They had leads of 1-0, and 2-1 in this 2011 final, and each time allowed a determined team of Japanese women to tie the game. After extra time, it came down to penalty kicks, like it did in 1999. There likely were lots of sports bras on the field Sunday in Frankfurt, but none were bared for the U.S. in a moment of sports exultation and marketing bliss.

The U.S. women failed to come through. They lost.

Here are the three provisos from the aforementioned waiver that apply:

• They played hard and they played well; they just didn’t capitalize on several chances, and they couldn’t fend off Japan.
• They lost to Japan, a nation reeling from the devastation of an earthquake, tsunami and a nuclear disaster. The crushing disappointment that ordinarily accompanies such a defeat is diluted somewhat by the satisfaction that Americans — and the rest of the world, for that matter — feel toward Japan’s spirit-lifting triumph.
• And, it was an exciting game full of plot twists that kept onlookers riveted.

The U.S. women were among the favorites to win this World Cup. Japan wasn’t. The Japanese weren’t considered as athletic or talented as the Americans. What they were was well-coached and disciplined. Plus, they had perseverance, which is often the best thing to have.

Slideshow   Going for the Cup Take a look at each match during the 2011 Women's World Cup in Germany. NBCSports.com

If you were rooting for the Americans you experienced queasiness in the first half as opportunity after opportunity either hit a post or went wide or over the goal. There were the conflicting senses that the U.S. was in control and that Japan was gaining confidence. It was that old lament come to life again in sports: “If you let a team hang around and don’t put it away ...”

In the second half, the Americans got a goal by Alex Morgan and one by Abby Wambach in extra time, but each time Japan fired back to tie the match. It was not an exemplary display by the U.S. of how to close. The Americans were six minutes away from winning their third World Cup before they let Japan back in.

But it was the penalty kicks that represented the icing on a fallen cake. Shannon Boxx, Carli Lloyd and Tobin Heath all looked like LeBron in the fourth quarter when they missed penalty shots. Japan won that shootout, 3-1, and with it came its first victory against the U.S. in 26 tries.

So any pundit would ask this question after such a fumbled chance: To rip, or not to rip? When choosing the former, it is important to feel it in one’s gut. The instinct to hammer must be greater than the one to ease up. In this case, it’s just not there with any real potency.