USWNT drown out criticism, focus on finding joy at Women's World Cup: 'We are not panicking'

The team is taking a positive approach as they prepare for Sweden in the Round of 16

The rest of America may have spent the hours after the U.S. women's national team's 0-0 draw against Portugal discussing Carli Lloyd's criticism of the squad's mentality, but the reigning champions are not focused on external feedback as they prepare for Sweden.

"We are not panicking," forward Lynn Williams said at a press conference Thursday. "We have made it to the round of 16. I think that we haven't played our best soccer yet, which is the most exciting part for us."

"It is noise," captain Lindsey Horan added. "Sometimes you hear it, you see it, and sometimes it's hard to get away from it but again, it's [your] job to have an opinion of our team … We're going to take that pressure, we're going to go with it, we're going to focus on ourselves and look at everything internally and try to keep the noise out as much as possible."

The team is instead taking a more positive and forward-thinking approach ahead of their encounter against Sweden on Sunday. The reigning champions won only once during the group stage and scored four goals to finish second in Group E with five points but aim to press the reset button as the knockout round begins. To do so, the USWNT are searching for the one thing they feel they were missing during the group stage: joy on the field.

"It's a lot of people's first tournament, mine included," Williams said. "You just want to go out there and perform so badly that you forget about all the joy and the reason why you started."

Horan felt that was particularly true against Portugal. 

"I was so heated the entire game that it felt like it was nonstop and so much [was] going on that you didn't get a second to just really enjoy what we were doing," she added. "We couldn't find that rhythm and just [were not] vibing together."

The mission to recapture on-field happiness began with the reaction to Tuesday's result, courtesy of a moment of perspective from Williams.

"After the game, it almost did feel like a disappointing feeling because we didn't play as good as we wanted to, we didn't score our chances," Horan said. "But [Williams] made a great point, We don't want to be disappointed in ourselves. We made it to the round of 16 and obviously we want to play better, we want to perform better … The expectations are always going to be there for this national team, and they're always going to be great and we're always going to be in the pressure cooker and we love that, so we just need to raise our standards."

The USWNT will need to improve their finishing ability to make a deep run Down Under after failing to put away opportunities throughout the group stage. The form is a sharp contrast from the attack-minded reputation the USWNT have built over the years, but Williams quashed the idea that the Americans' finishing touch is gone.

"We had opportunities, we had moments, it's just capitalizing on them," Williams added. "That's the game of soccer sometimes."

The forward believes joy is required to fix that, too, and that the team is already rediscovering that on-field enthusiasm.

"Tournaments are about results and we're getting the results so just reminding ourselves that, coming together as a team, having meetings, having fun with each other," Williams said. "It's a lot of pressure it feels like sometimes, but there's a human side to that as well and knowing that we can look at each other and say, 'I got your back. If you mess up, I'll have your back. If you do something great, I'll cheer for you as if I'm doing something great,' and we have come together as a team and have done that after being able to look at the last three games that we've just gone through so I think it's already been found."