Advertisement
Supported by
United States Beats Chile, 3-0, at Women’s World Cup
PARIS — Menacing and dominating a second straight opponent, the United States women’s national team advanced to the second round of the World Cup with a 3-0 victory against Chile on Sunday.
Carli Lloyd scored twice and Julie Ertz once for the Americans, who turned in their second straight comprehensive victory and ran their goal total to 18 for and none against through two matches in the tournament.
The victory, and Sweden’s earlier in the day against Thailand, ensured that both teams would advance to the knockout rounds. They will play one another for first place in Group F on Thursday in Le Havre. The group winner faces a likely date with host France, perhaps the second-best team in the tournament thus far, in the quarterfinals.
Only a tremendous effort by Chile’s goalkeeper, Christiane Endler, kept the United States-Chile result closer than something resembling the scoreline in the Americans’ first game against Thailand. Endler was named player of the game, a rare occurrence for a goalkeeper in a game in which her team lost by three goals and was outshot, 26-1.
Lloyd gave the Americans the lead with a rifled left-footed shot in the 11th minute and then, after Ertz doubled the lead off a corner kick, added her second goal with a header of her own off a corner in the 35th minute. She missed out on a chance for a hat trick when she pulled a penalty kick wide in the 81st minute.
The United States peppered Endler throughout the game, but she was at her best in the second half, when, in quick succession, she produced wonderful reaction saves to thwart Lindsey Horan and then Christen Press (twice). In that same stretch of the game, the substitute Jessica McDonald hit the right post and Lloyd dinged the crossbar for the United States.
The victory pulled Sweden through to the knockout stages along with the Americans; the Swedes beat Thailand, 5-1, in Sunday’s early game in Nice.
Follow the match as it happened below:
88’
Not sure that fourth goal is coming now.
Chile has shown just enough fight, and gotten just enough luck and a spectacular game from Endler, that the fourth goal we all felt has been coming in this one might not arrive. That’s probably a fair reward for Endler, who kept this from being 7-0 or 8-0 all by herself.
81’
Ball don’t lie: Lloyd pulls the penalty wide.
Maybe that’s karmic justice for the odd penalty decision, but Lloyd misses a chance to get her hat trick by yanking her attempt wide of both Endler and the left post. We stay at 3-0.
Emily Sonnett quietly replaces Dahlkemper after the play. That’s the final U.S. substitute.
80’
Penalty to the U.S.!
The first test of V.A.R. for the United States in the World Cup catches Chile’s Yessenia Huenteo pulling down Allie Long at the top of the area.
Curious decision, since it appeared to happen outside the area.
Lloyd up to seal her hat trick ....
71’
Lloyd off the crossbar!
Finally, someone gets a ball beyond Endler, and now it’s the bar that keeps it out. Lloyd really seemed sure she had her hat trick there.
That fourth goal really still seems like it’s coming though .....
66’
Endler with ANOTHER huge save for Chile.
She’ll be (wo)man of the match at this rate in a game in which her team never had a chance. A rifled cross from Pugh, nodded through by McDonald to Press, who turns a stiff header in at the far post, only to see Endler reach behind her to push it aside.
“That was extraordinary,” Rory Smith exclaims in the seat next to me. He’s right.
64’
McDonald with a curler now — off the post!
That fourth goal is coming soon. Endler was beaten there, as McDonald cut inside after being led down the left wing by Lloyd. Her long curling shot from just outside the area pings the outside of the far post though.
58’
And now Press takes a whack with a volley!
Brian switches the play to the left for Press, and she sizes up the lofted ball perfectly and one-times it with her right foot. Endler parries, but that had a Zidane feel to it, and might have deserved better.
Horan off after the play, replaced by Allie Long, who makes her 2019 World Cup debut. No rest for Chile in her.
55’
Near miss for Horan!
A terrific through ball springs Press down the left, and she cuts the ball back at the end line for Horan on the doorstep. Horan meets it perfectly with her left foot, but Endler — somehow — sticks a foot out and sends the ball over the ball. What a pass by Press, and what a save.
53’
The pressure continues from the United States.
As expected, the United States has shifted into what is effectively a 4-2-4, with Brian and Horan resisting every urge to make it a six-player front line. The U.S. is still winning every free ball in midfield, and even accidents — like a slip by Brian that handed Chile a 3v3 counterattack — are swiftly cleaned up and neutralized.
46’
U.S. substitute at halftime: Jessica McDonald for Julie Ertz.
Jessica McDonald, a first-time World Cup player at age 31, makes her debut by replacing Julie Ertz at halftime. But McDonald is a striker and Ertz was a holding midfielder, a position the Americans haven’t had much need for today.
Four forwards in a game her team is dominating? For the second game in a row? Man, Ellis isn’t messing around in France.
Halftime
Changes? Only to the lineup, not to the product.
Carli Lloyd had two goals and Julie Ertz one and — except for a momentary blunder that saw a free ball roll harmlessly into the American net — Jill Ellis will not have seen a lot to complain about in that half.
The United States may have swapped in a bunch of reserves but they are playing with the same kind of drive and purpose they showed against Thailand: probing balls, not hopeful ones; a bit of bite, especially from Horan, who got the half’s only yellow card; and absolutely ruthless finishing. And this with their three best forwards on the bench today.
Chile has some figuring to do, but they’ve showed their teeth at times — especially Saez, who was lucky to avoid a yellow on a late sweep of Pugh’s legs at the end line. But Thailand trailed by 3-0 at halftime, too, and we saw what happened then. Ellis still has even bigger guns to fire if she chooses.
35’
As we were saying ....... 3-0.
Lloyd cuts hard to the center on the next corner and nods in her second. Easy peasy.
32’
Finishing like the world’s best, U.S. now has 15 goals in France.
Ertz’s goal and Lloyd’s before it were two of the best examples yet of what separates the Americans from most of the world: clinical, dominant finishing. They don’t hope to score goals: they voraciously pursue them, and have the skills and the instincts to take advantage of even the slightest openings.
Chile’s Yanera Aedo said as much on Saturday. Her team gave up five set-piece goals to the Americans in two games last fall.
“We learned that even two seconds of not concentrating on what you’re doing can produce a goal,” she said.
26’
2-0!!! Beautiful header from Ertz there to double the head.
A corner from Davidson from the right meets a charging Ertz at the near post, and she flips it past Endler with the back of her head. That’s a pro’s finish there.
23’
Chile scores! But NO — it’s offside!!!
That may a mess: a cross leads Carla Guerrero, and Naeher charges off her line. Both miss the ball, though, and it trickles into the net. Chile celebrates, but the lineswoman has her flag up as soon as the ball rolls across the line.
And she’s right: Guerrero was a step or two ahead.
11’
GOAL! Lloyd pounces on an error and finishes.
Big mistake from Saez there, who sends a weak clearing header to the center at the top of the penalty area. Lloyd eats those for lunch, and she ripped a left-footed shot past Endler, who never moved, and the United States is ahead, 1-0.
Rocket of a shot, and Lloyd’s second goal of the tournament.
4’
Nearly a disaster for Chile already.
Saez turned a cross right into her own goalkeeper, and Lloyd is there for the rebound. But she hits the post, and Endler smothers the loose ball. Chile verrrrry lucky there.
1’
The U.S. already has won a corner.
Chile kicked off, and in two passes the ball was at Endler’s feet because of U.S. pressure. Now the Americans have won a corner; Endler punches it right to Brian, but she fires over the bar from the spot.
Today’s starting lineups: Seven changes for the U.S.
United States lineup: Alyssa Naeher; Tierna Davidson, Becky Sauerbrunn, Abby Dahlkemper, Ali Krieger; Lindsey Horan, Julie Ertz, Morgan Brian; Christen Press, Carli Lloyd (c), Mallory Pugh.
Chile lineup: Christiane Endler; Javiera Toro, Camila Saez, Carla Guerrero, Su Helen Galaz; Francisca Lara, Karen Araya, Claudia Soto; Rosario Balmaceda, Maria Jose Urrutia, Daniela Zamora.
A reporter asked Lindsey Horan on Saturday if she considered the United States the best offense in the world.
“I like to think that,” Horan said. “I think what’s so special about this team is the depth in it.”
Well, Jill Ellis is sure showing off that trait today: she has made seven changes from the team that she sent out to demolish Thailand. Her second-string front line — Press, Lloyd and Pugh — replaces Megan Rapinoe, Alex Morgan and Tobin Heath. But that’s hardly it.
Morgan Brian, the last player to make the U.S. roster, starts in midfield, and Tierna Davidson (in her first World Cup game) and Ali Krieger (in her 14th) are in for outside backs Crystal Dunn and Kelley O’Hara. Davidson, 20, is the youngest player to start a World Cup match for the United States since Tiffany Roberts in 1995.
Becky Sauerbrunn returns at center back, too; she was held out of the Thailand game with what was described by team officials as a “quad” issue.
Will we see 13 more goals today?
It’s unlikely, but never say never. It’s hard to imagine the United States matching the sheer dominance of last week’s baker’s-dozen thrashing of overmatched Thailand. But Thailand, at No. 34, is actually five spots ahead of Chile in the current FIFA world rankings, though that may have to do more with the team’s recent history than their current state. One positive for Chile is that it has a world-class goalkeeper organizing its defense: Christiane Endler.
Endler, 27, grew up with little ambition of making a career in soccer, but eventually was encouraged to commit herself to goalkeeping. After starting for Chile as a 17-year-old in the 2008 FIFA Under-20 World Cup, she made her way to the University of South Florida and then the Europe, where she has been named the top goalkeeper in Spain (with Valencia) and France (with Paris St.-Germain this season).
The United States surely knows about her: when the teams played two friendlies last fall, Endler made a combined 17 saves in the two games. But merely holding the score down again is not the goal on Sunday.
“When we come out to play a match, we don’t come out thinking, Oh, let’s lose but not by much,” midfielder Yanara Aedo said. “I don’t think it would be a victory if the U.S. beats us not by a lot of goals, but by only a few goals. It’s not a victory to lose by a small margin against the U.S.A. A victory for us is to play well, to the best of our capabilities, and playing the way we know to play.”
Does recent history offer clues about today?
The United States and Chile played twice last fall, three months before they were drawn into the same World Cup group. Are there lessons to be learned from those meetings? Perhaps.
Unsurprisingly, the United States dominated both matches, winning by 3-0 and 4-0. The majority of the goals came off set pieces, which if often the case when a skilled, well-trained elite team meets a far more inexperienced one.
“They were obvious really intense matches,” Aedo said. “We knew that they were really high-speed games, Any kind of rival that is as quick and as physical as they are, they don’t give you much time to think on you feet.
“For most of us in the team, it’s actually been useful to see how that elite of women’s soccer plays, so we can sort of judge ourselves against them, measure where we’re actually at.
“We got a lot out of it. We learned that even two seconds of not concentrating on what you’re doing can produce a counterattack and a goal. So we maybe know a little more of what we’ve got in front of us.”
Advertisement
No comments:
Post a Comment