The United States of America USA on Saturday morning drew the curtain on the Vietnam War with a 3-0 pummeling of the Golden Star Women Warriors of Vietnam in the opener of Group E match at the Eden Park in Auckland.
Star girl, Sophia Smith received a back heel pass from Alex Morgan to score the first goal in the 14th minute and also scored the second goal in the 45+9th minute from a Sullivan corner that was settled by VAR which indicated that Morgan was not offside as Ref Bouchra Karboubi of Morocco had indicated through the lines lady flagging.
America had lost a penalty in the 41st minute that was awarde by the VAR when Rodman fouled Sophia Smith and Alex Morgan missed the penalty taken in the 44th minute due to the delay in confirmation.
Star lady Smith again gave a vital assist to Captain Lindsay Horan to score the 3rd goal in the 77th minute.
Thus USA has won seven of their nine opening matches in the FIFA Women’s World Cup drawing two including a competition record 13-0 victory over Thailand in the 2019 edition opener.
USA has never lost a FIFA women’s world cup game played against a team from Asia with 12 wins and 4 draws keeping clean sheet (scoreless match not conceding a goal) in 11 of those 16 games now.
Coach Mai Chung of Vietnam had shown signs of the fear for American power when he packed the defence of the debutante Vietnam with absurd five players, playing four players in the midfield to create the Berlin wall against America and leaving just a player upfront against the 43-3 USA pattern.
Vietnam played her first International game on 7th October 1997 at Jakarta, Indonesia losing to
Thailand 2-3. Interestingly her biggest win was a 16-0 blasting of Maldives on 23rd of September 2021 at Dushanbe, Tajikistan. North Korea hammered Vietnam 12-1 at Iloilo City, Philippines on 9th November 1999 while Australia also punched the nation silly with 11-0 on 21st May 2015 at Sydney.
The USA is the most successful women’s team in the world having won the coveted world cup four times in 1991 at China; 1999 at home; 2015 in Canada and 2019 in France. The country also won the Olympics female soccer Gold four times in 1996; 2004; 2008 and 2012. Appearing in all tournaments, she also bagged the Silver in Germany 2011 and made three Bronze medals at Sweden 95; USA 2003 and China 2007.
Tomorrow Sunday 23rd July, Netherlands will engage Portugal in the other group E first round match expected to be officiated by Ukrainian Ref Kateryna Monzul. On 27th July the second round matches of the group will see USA versus Netherlands at the Wellington Regional Stadium and Portugal versus Vietnam at Waikato Stadium, Hamilton. The last group matches slated simultaneously for 1st August is Portugal tackling USA at Eden Park and Vietnam locking horns with Netherlands at Forsyth Barr Stadium, Dunedin.
Four matches will be played on Saturday 22nd July. USA will meet Vietnam at 0200 hours in group E encounter at Eden Park; African representative Zambia will square up with Asian giants,
Japan at 0800 hours in Group C match at Waikato New Zealand; England will trade tackles with Haiti at 1030 hours in a Group D match at Suncorp Stadium Australia and at 1300 hours, Denmark and China will take to the turf in a group D match at NIB Stadium, Perth Australia.
On Sunday, 23rd July, Sweden versus South Africa at 0600 hours; Netherlands versus Portugal at 0830 hours and France versus Jamaica at 1100 hours Nigerian time.
By Eniola Olatunji .
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