2012 Summer OlympicsVideo

Alex Morgan’s Knee Had A Pretty Scary Collision With New Zealand’s Goalie’s Face

The U.S. advanced to the semifinals of the Olympic soccer tournament today, beating New Zealand 2-0. The result was expected – the U.S. is the world’s top-ranked team according to FIFA, while New Zealand is all the way down at 23 – but it didn’t always come especially easily. First off, there’s the score – while the Americans controlled the game, the score was still 1-0 until the 87th minute.

But we’re thinking less about the goals and more about the physicality – specifically, one moment from about 20 minutes before the match ended, when star U.S. striker Alex Morgan collided with New Zealand goalie Jenny Bindon. Or, more specifically, Morgan’s knee collided directly with Bindon’s face. It was a rough day for Bindon – in the first half, Abby Wambach kicked her by accident. This one, though, looked more serious, as both players were down on the pitch for a spell afterward. Thankfully (and sort of amazingly, in Bindon’s case), both were okay. Once again, despite all the jokes about diving in soccer: this is not necessarily a game for the squeamish. See the seriously painful-looking incident below.

And if you’d rather watch it in gif form, here you go, via CJ Fogler: