SEMIFINAL SCORE BOARD

 Sweden will meet Spain in the first semifinal on Tuesday 15th august at Eden Park in Auckland at 0900 hours.

 England will now meet hosts Australia in the second semifinal on Wednesday 16th August at 1100 hours.

The Three Lionesses of England on Saturday at the Stadium Australia handicapped the Power-Puff Girls of Columbia in the quarterfinals of the women’s world cup 2-1 to qualify for her second appearance in the last four after Canada 2015.

Incidentally, the Power-Puff Girls scored first through Athletico Madrid’s Lecy Santos with a stunning out swinger that simply dropped into the net for her first goal at the tournament.

Manchester City’s Lauren Hemp got a pass from Russo that Perez of Columbia miscalculated an interception for and Hemp put it in for an equalizer.

Georgia Stanway floated a pass to Arsenals’ Alessia Russo to get the winner at 63rd minute. Russo scored in the 6-1 bashing of China at the group stages.

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England surely missed Lauren James their beautiful restless goal poacher who stamped maliciously on Super Falcon’s player at the Round of 16 and got a red card. FIFA officially announced a two match for James meaning she will still miss the Semifinal and may return at the final or 3rd place match whichever applies.

England will now meet hosts Australia in the second semifinal on Wednesday 16th August at 1100 hours.

Earlier today in a dramatic encounter that produced the highest penalty kicks ever in any world cup match, male or female with 20 kicks of 10 each, hosts Australia defeated France 7-6 to move to the semifinal.

England in their first match narrowly beat Haiti 1-0 on 22nd July; won against Denmark by the same margin on 28th July and on 1st August dazed China 6-1. England beat Super Falcons of Nigeria 4-2 on penalties after a goalless full time to move on to the quarterfinal from the round of 16.

England is in their 6th knockout stages. The country won two of their round of 16 matches, 2-1 against Norway in 2015 and 3-0 over Cameroon in 2019.

England was at the world cup six times and her best was a Bronze at Canada 2015 when she lost the semifinal 1-2 to Japan and beat France 1-0 in the 3rd place match. She had three quarterfinal appearances in Sweden 1995 when she was beaten by Germany 3-0; at China 2007 USA pounded England 3-0 and Germany came again while hosting in 2011 to beat England 4-3 on penalties when AET was 1-1.

To get to the round of 16, Columbia banged Korea 2-0 on 25th of July; defeated Germany 2-1 on 30th July and lost to Morocco 0-1 on 30th of July. Columbia scored four goals and conceded 2 vital goals. Columbia piped the Reggae Girlz of Jamaica by a lone goal to stop the all night long Reggae Jamz.

This is the second appearance of Columbia at the round of 16 stages at the world cup after 2015 where they were eliminated at that stage by eventual winners USA 0-2. Among South American teams, only Brazil has managed to win a game at the Knockout stage in 1999 and 2007.

England and Jamaica met once at the world cup which was a Group F match at Montreal in Canada on 17th June 2015 which England won. The two goals scored at that match were from Karen Carney and Fara Williams. Columbia defeated England 3-2 on 31st May 2005 and England retaliated 3-2 on 3rd May 2020.

England is playing their 6th quarterfinal at the world cup. They failed to qualify for the semifinal in the first three.

Columbia is getting to the quarterfinal for the first time and are looking to become the second American side to reach the final four after Brazil in 1999 and 2007.

Sweden will meet Spain in the first semifinal on Tuesday 15th august at Eden Park in Auckland at 0900 hours.

Something unique is that we are expecting a new champion for the world as previous champions, four times winner USA; two times winner, Germany; Japan and Norway that won one time each have been exited in this tournament.

By Eniola Olatunji 

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