Women's World Cup - Tuesday review: USA score 13 in remarkable victory over Thailand; Sweden battle the rain to beat Chile
A review of Tuesday's action at the 2019 Women's World Cup, where the USA started their defence of the title with a huge 13-0 victory over Thailand.
USA 13-0 Thailand
The USA cruised to an incredible 13-0 victory over Thailand as they started their Women’s World Cup defence in remarkable fashion.
Alex Morgan netted her 102nd goal for her country with just over ten minutes on the clock with a header from close range.
Shortly after, Thailand goalkeeper Sukanya Charoenying should have done better to keep out Rose Lavelle’s effort from long range.
The United States midfielder struck from outside the area and the ball sailed into the bottom corner to put her side in firm control.
With half an hour on the clock, Lindsey Horan made it three. A free-kick into the box deflected into the path of the Portland forward, who found the roof of the net with a half-volley.
Somehow, Thailand survived a wave of attacks in the final moments of the first-half with Charoenying coming to the rescue as the USA were also denied a penalty in the same spell. It made little difference though, with a commanding 3-0 lead for the favourites at the break.
The United States continued the second-half in similar fashion to the first with goals from Morgan and Samantha Mewis making it five less than ten minutes in.
Moments later, Mewis got her second and the USA’s sixth. However, they weren’t done there as Lavelle also netted a brace with possession gained shortly after the kick-off.
There would be no hat-trick for the midfielder, who was subbed off after scoring.
A hat-trick did come for Morgan though. The forward made it 8-0 on 74 minutes as the USA highlighted how they had no intention of slowing down.
The final ten minutes saw more goals as Megan Rapinoe got the ninth goal on 79 minutes, followed shortly by Morgan’s fourth goal for ten.
Mallory Pugh then joined the goalscoring action on 85 minutes as the Washington forward struck for number 11.
Morgan could not stop scoring, grabbing her fifth of the night to make it 12-0, before Carlie Lloyd wrapped up a huge 13-0 win with a goal in the 92nd minute.
Chile 0-2 Sweden
Sweden had to battle heavy rain, thunderstorms and a resilient Chile defence to wrap up a 2-0 victory in their Group F opener.
The South American side, making their Women's World Cup debut, had managed to keep Sweden at bay aided by an inspired performance by goalkeeper Claudia Endler.
With their 18th attempt on goal though, Sweden struck. The ball deflected into the path of Kosovare Asllani and the Linköpings forward made no mistake in finding the roof of the net from less than ten yards out.
As the game entered the closing stages, substitute Madelen Janogy danced her way through the Chile defence and cut inside the box, where a fierce left-footed effort found the top corner.
It was Janogy's second goal in as many appearances for Sweden after a goal from the bench in their recent friendly against South Korea.
'Adverse weather conditions' caused the game to be interrupted in the second-half with the players off the pitch for around 45 minutes.
72 minutes were on the clock when referee Lucila Venegas decided to call a halt to proceedings. Conditions had significantly improved by the time the players returned to the pitch.
When the delay was over, Sweden picked up where they had left off as they continued to ask questions of the opposition.
Their reward finally came in the 83rd minute as Asllani hit the winner. With the contest all-but-over, super sub Janogy added a second.
Sweden coach Peter Gerhardsson told his press conference: "We've been following Chile for many matches now and there are some very skilled players, not least their goalkeeper, so we knew this would be a tough match.
"We saw how they played tactically against the Netherlands and also the match against Germany - they scored one goal on a corner, and one on a failed kick.
"They never constructed much play so we knew this would be a tough match. They're a tactically skilled team and we're very happy that we won."
Chile boss Jose Letelier said: "I think it was a really tough game for our team. We've been following Sweden as an opponent.
"We've looked at our physical fitness and this has been quite complex for our team. This created a difference between the teams and we've really had to look at all types of situations. Our players gave their all throughout the entire game.
"Of course, it was a difficult game and unfortunately, during the last 10 minutes the result changed."
New Zealand 0-1 Netherlands
Jill Roord's 92nd minute effort was the difference at the Netherlands beat New Zealand 1-0 in Le Havre.
The Dutch dominated possession and saw the majority of chances go their way with a huge total of 17 goal attempts eventually proving too much for the opposition.
New Zealand were a huge 9/1 for victory, but came within minutes of a valuable point and now find themselves as outsiders to progress following Canada's victory over Cameroon on Monday night.
Speaking about the result, Netherlands coach Sarina Wiegman said: "I think we can play better than we did today. But we were looking for a win and New Zealand were looking for a draw, and I’m very glad we finally got what we wanted.
"I’m very relieved, of course. Let’s hope that we play better in our next match – that’s our goal.
"We want to create more scoring opportunities than we did today."
Netherlands' Lieke Martens was voted the Player of the Match and she added: "It was a difficult match and we found it tough to create openings. New Zealand defended well and it was not our best match, that’s clear.
"But I think we’re able to handle these kind of difficult matches as we have quite a lot of experience now.
"It was important for the team that we started with a win and now we’ll look back and analyse where we can do better."
New Zealand boss Tom Sermanni is determined to take the positives despite late heartbreak.
“We’ve got to look at the positive things we did," he told his press conference. "We had a game plan and the players adhered to that magnificently.
"Their effort, courage and discipline was first class. We’ve got to take those positives away and look at the 90 minutes as a whole. The Dutch were the dominant team but we created some great chances.
"The players will be absolutely devastated but we’re a resilient group and I’m pretty confident we’ll bounce back."
FIFA rejects ticketing plan criticism
Also on Tuesday, world football's governing body FIFA has defended its ticketing policy at the 2019 Women's World Cup despite seeing average attendances at the first nine games of less than two-thirds of stadium capacity.
So far there have been only two sold-out matches: the opener in Paris between hosts France and Korea, and between Brazil and Jamaica at the tournament's smallest ground in Grenoble.
The Australia-Italy match in Valenciennes was two thirds full, with a crowd of 15,380, but the games at Le Havre, Montpelier, Reims and Rennes have been about half full.
England's game against Scotland in Nice attracted only 13,188 fans at the 35,100-capacity Allianz Arena.
The overall attendance for the nine games is 165,647, or 64 per cent of a total capacity of 259,300.
Last week, FIFA president Gianni Infantino told reporters in Paris that "20 matches or so" had been sold out and "the fever is coming" to France, particularly in the host cities beyond Paris.
This was in response to a question about the lack of visible publicity for the event in Paris, which was still promoting the World Rugby Sevens Series at its main airport and the French Open on the Champs-Elysees and Metro.
Nobody challenged Infantino at the time, largely because it seemed to tally with a tweet from FIFA's official account in May that said tickets were only still available for a "few matches".
On Tuesday, FIFA issued a press release to say it had "reached an important milestone with over one million tickets having now been allocated to fans worldwide".
It also said 14 of the 52 matches, not 20, are sold out, including all of the group-stage matches involving France and those of defending champions the United States.
There are, however, tickets available for all of the round-of-16 games and three of the quarter-finals, although the quarter-final in Paris and the two semi-finals and final, which are being held at the 57,900-capacity Stade de Lyon, are sold out.
In total, there should be more than 200,000 tickets still available, as 1.3million were put up for sale last September but 93,653 went unsold from the first nine games.