The United States of America USA on Saturday morning defeated the Golden Star Women Warriors of Vietnam in the opener of Group E match at the Eden Park in Auckland.
Star girl, Sophia Smith received a back heel pass from Alex Morgan to score the first goal in the 14th minute and also scored the second goal in the 45+9th minute from a Sullivan corner that was settled by VAR which indicated that Morgan was not offside as Ref Bouchra Karboubi of Morocco had indicated through the lines lady flagging.
America had lost a penalty in the 41st minute that was awarded by the VAR when Rodman fouled Sophia Smith and Alex Morgan missed the penalty taken in the 44th minute due to the delay in confirmation.
Star lady Smith again gave a vital assist to Captain Lindsay Horan to score the 3rd goal in the 77th minute.
Thus USA has won seven of their nine opening matches in the FIFA Women’s World Cup drawing two including a competition record 13-0 victory over Thailand in the 2019 edition opener.
USA has never lost a FIFA women’s world cup game played against a team from Asia with 12 wins and 4 draws keeping clean sheet (scoreless match not conceding a goal) in 11 of those 16 games now.
Coach Mai Chung of Vietnam had shown signs of the fear for American power when he packed the defence of the debutante Vietnam with absurd five players, playing four players in the midfield to create the Berlin wall against America and leaving just a player upfront against the 43-3 USA pattern.
Vietnam played her first International game on 7th October 1997 at Jakarta, Indonesia losing to Thailand 2-3. Interestingly her biggest win was a 16-0 blasting of Maldives on 23rd of September 2021 at Dushanbe, Tajikistan. North Korea hammered Vietnam 12-1 at Iloilo City, Philippines on 9th November 1999 while Australia also punched the nation silly with 11-0 on 21st May 2015 at Sydney.