Crinion: It's good to learn now and not in the knockouts

The final group-stage match to finish at the FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup Morocco 2026™ went down to the wire.

China PR versus USA was a straight shootout for Group E supremacy, and the contest was balanced on a knife edge right up until 101st and final minute. In the end, China won out to secure a third straight win and leapfrog their North American counterparts into first place.

"We're disappointed. Obviously, we want to win every game, but one thing I said to the players at the end is we felt like we were going to score until the last kick of the game," USA coach Ciara Crinion told FIFA.

"It's tough to give up the goals, but when you come away from it, we're going into the next round. And when I see that level of persistency from the players right up to the last minute, it gives us some takeaways to get better for the next game, but also know that we're a 90-minute team and we can keep going and going and going."

Krinion thought her side had taken the lead when Amari Manning tapped home in the fifth minute, but the offside flag denied them. China sent the resulting free-kick long, which reached Liu Yuxi, who arrowed home the opener. Maddie DiMaria levelled matters only for Zhao Jiayi to restore the AFC nation's lead just 125 seconds later.

"We definitely felt that, in key moments, momentum shifted really quick and that's a key thing," Krinion added. "We want to make sure that when you do score and you do equalise, that you can keep the momentum in your favour. The punchback hit us a little bit and we never recovered from it in the end."

Liu Yuxi extended China's lead with a ferocious effort ten minutes later. Ortiz Isa finished a slick US attack to move the score within one seven minutes into added time, but the States couldn't find the leveller which would have wrestled back first spot. Despite defeat, Crinion still has plenty of positives to take forward.

"We created chances, we were right there, so it was a different type of challenge," she said. "I thought China came out and played us very well and we know we're going to get teams' best games, but we'll walk away from that with a lot of learning and a lot of positives that we know we're still doing the right things and getting into the right spaces.

"We never got carried away with our first two games; we always knew it was game to game. We had ourselves in a position where we could still not win the last game and go through, but I don't think it changed how we approached things at all. It's learning and it's probably good to have the learning now and not in the knockout stage when that game can send you home."

That game in question will be against Spain, who won all three of their group matches against Mexico, Australia and Chile. What Spain can bring to the table, though, is far from Crinion's key focus.

"There's always going to be a next opponent and for us it was always going to be, 'How do we get better? How do we learn? How do we grow?' It really is about us and what we're trying to do and how we can perform, no matter who we're going to play. We respect the opponent, but it's just the next game, so it will be a big focus on how we rebound from this and how we get ready to go."