Captain Nadine Angerer was Germanys shootout heroine as they booked a semifinal spot at FIFA Womens World Cup following a 5-4 penalty shootout win, yesterday, over France in Montreal after the teams played to a 1-1 scoreline after 120 minutes.
Advertisement
“France is an extremely good team”.
The 2003 and 07 World Cup champions will play Tuesday against the United States or China.The Germans men and women have won all five of their World Cup shootouts. [Group] A1 is Canada and for the rest, we would’ve be drawn randomly according to our seeding.
“We’re very disappointed, we had a pact amongst ourselves to get on the podium, so were very disappointed, but we can only blame ourselves as we weren’t able to take advantage of our opportunities”, a dejected French coach Philippe Bergeroo said after the game. But the world’s top two teams advanced to the final four in contrasting fashions.
The game between top-ranked Germany and third-ranked France had been called an “early final”, but the French, who beat the Germans 2-0 in a friendly in October, controlled much of the play and had most of the scoring chances. But it couldn’t muster an attack until the 84th minute after Leonie Maier kicked the ball off France defender Amel Majri’s raised arm just inside the penalty area.
“From our perspective it wasn’t the best match, we can play at a higher level, but we showed our character, and we had to fight tooth and nail to stay in the game in the second half”, Neid stated. Necib finally found the go-ahead goal in the second half, but France should have already been leading by a couple of goals, to say the least. Some are saying no, including France’s Camille Abily, who was on the losing end of the nail-biting penalty kick shootout that sent France home.
At half-time, star-sub Dzsenifer Marozsan came on to replace Anja Mittag for Germany and the Germans started well following their poor first half.
Fei did make saves off Alex Morgan in the fourth minute and stopped Lloyd off a free kick in the 37th minute.
When the woman in goal is a ex- World Player of the Year, you have to expect that she’ll save one. We lost on tiny details.
France’s only other World Cup knockout win was a penalty kick victory over England in 2011.
Fresh off Australia’s first victory in an elimination game, Stajcic brashly proclaimed that the 10th-ranked Matildas aren’t scared of anyone.
The Chinese failed to qualify for the 2011 tournament and the London Olympics, with their 1-0 last-16 win over Cameroon earning them a bonus of around one million yuan ($160,000) from the national football association.
“I don’t think it’s false bravado”. Angerer guessed correctly and dove toward the lower right side in time to get her knee on the ball and lift Germany into the semifinals. Brian, the youngest USA player at 22, sat back in the pocket, allowing Lloyd to be more creative. “Everyone’s seen us play”, he added, before outlining how the Australians made it through the so-called Group of Death, and then knocked off Brazil in the Round of 16 last weekend.
Advertisement
It’s a bold statement coming from a first-year coach of a 10th-ranked team that had gone 0-7-2 in its first three World Cup appearances before winning its first game.
