Tuesday, October 31, 2006

US Women running wild at Peace Queen Cup

Today, the US Women took down Australia 2-0 to go a top Group B. After tying Denmark 1-1 on Saturday, if the team wanted to advance to next Saturday's final, they were just about in a 'must win' situation, as a side must win their group to advance.

The US got the scoring going early thanks to a person that knows how to score the goals, Kristine Lily. The goal was her 115th of he career.

"Lilly created the goal almost out of nothing, as she ran down a cross from Kai that flew from the right wing through the penalty area and rolled outside the box on the left flank. Lilly squared up on her defender, beat her to the inside and cracked a shot with her right foot from about 14 yards out that took a deflection off the shoulder of an Aussie defender and soared just under the crossbar, slamming into the back of the net near the upper right corner."

The second goal came 15 minutes later when Natasha Kai took a nice deflection off a Abby Wambach touch and slammed it home.

"It was Abby Wambach who did the heavy lifting on the second goal as she sprinted into the right side of the penalty area and beautifully brought down a high Lilly service in stride. She took a hard touch toward goal, a bit too hard in fact, as Australian goalkeeper Melissa Barbieri came out sliding to block the cross at the edge of the six-yard box. The ball deflected straight up in the air and dropped at the front of the goal box where Kai took a great touch to her right to lose a defender before blasting the ball into the net for her sixth career international goal."

The other match saw Denmark keep the heat on the US by beating the Netherlands1-0.

Here is the current table
Team Pts GoalDif
USA 4 +2
Den 4 +1
Aus 3 -1
Ned 0 -2

The US plays the Netherlands on Thursday with Australia and Denmark kicking off their match 30-minutes after the US match ends. If the US does not get at least a tie, they will not advance to the final. If they win, they still have to hope the Denmark does not win by a big enough goal difference to over take them in the standings.

In Group A, Canada is in first, with Brazil two points behind in second, meaning that tomorrow's match between these two sides will decide the Group winner.

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