The United States kept its ideal streak alive in qualifying for its sixth consecutive Olympic women’s soccer tournament Friday night.
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The USWNT has been rolling through the tournament including a 10-0 dismantling of Puerto Rico followed by a 5-0 shutout of Trinidad & Tobago in Friday’s semifinal match.
For the USA, that game offers an opportunity to win a fourth straight CONCACAF title while for Canada it looms as a grudge match.
So, Canada and the United States women’s national team are going to Rio.
As the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup winners, the USA had been expected to qualify easily for the Olympic football tournament and they comfortably breezed past Trinidad and Tobago to earn the first of two berths available. Centrowitz won the indoor meet’s signature event for the third time, making his move with a lap to go to beat New Zealand’s Nick Willis in a meet-record 3 minutes, 50.63 seconds.
The U.S. also won all three of its pool matches, outscoring its opposition 16-0.
“I’ll have to see the replay”. John Herdman, coach for the Canadian team said that he has a group that is hungry and going to give the USWNT a fight in the final.
HOUSTON, Texas – Just leave it to Hope Solo to stir the pot just a bit before the CONCACAF Women’s Olympic Qualifying Championship between the United States and Canada Sunday. “We had lots of crosses into the box and I was lucky to get a couple in”. However, the scoring chances for the Canadians were few and far between as the US tested the Canadian defense throughout the half. Her second goal of the match that came in the 52 minute literally shocked the crowd: after bringing the ball down in the penalty area, Sinclair flicked it over her head and shot the ball right past Costa Rica’s goalkeeper. It will be a hot contested match as both teams are no strangers to one another and the Americans are not taking the match lightly – having beaten Canada in the 2012 edition of the tournament.
The 34th-ranked Costa Ricans, who made their World Cup debut last summer on Canadian soil, have never made it to the Olympics. “I hope we can do Canada proud again”. “I think the whole atmosphere of the stadium and everything was just really cool, and I think that kind of translated into my game”. At 17, Pugh is the youngest player on the team. Pugh broke clear and rounded Forbes, but desperate recovery defending saw her cutback poked clear, and Morgan saw two clear looks at goal blocked well by the embattled netminder, as did Carli Lloyd. The Americans have Mallory Pugh, the 17-year-old midfielder who will enter UCLA next year. Sydney Leroux tied things to make the final 1-1 in a friendly in Winnipeg.
Will it be attractive against Canada on Sunday, instead of against a team on this night cobbled together at the last minute that had pride but little preparation?
It was Heath’s first goal since she scored in the 5-2 World Cup final victory over Japan.
Sinclair left to applause in the 82nd minute after upping her goals total to three at the tournament and a record 18 in career CONCACAF Olympic qualifying.
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“I think they have more of a rivalry with us than we do with them because I think they always want to prove that their growing the game in their country and they’ve come a long way”, she said.
