United States Women’s National Team (USWNT) coach Emma Hayes took charge of her first match on Sunday morning, which saw the four-time world champions thrash South Korea 4-0 at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park in Colorado.
Haye’s tenure got off to a flying start thanks to a pair of braces from Mallory Swanson and Tierna Davidson.
“I think you can see we’re building something,” the ex-Chelsea boss said in her post-match interview. “There’s a lot of work to do. There are a lot of loopholes in our play but it was a good start.”
Meanwhile, Germany maintained their perfect start to the UEFA Women’s European Championship qualifiers with a 4-1 comeback victory over Poland on Friday.
The visitors got an unexpected first-minute lead through Natalia Padilla before Wiktoria Zieniewicz levelled the scores in the 34th minute with an own goal.
Lea Schuller punished Poland’s defenders for their lack of coordination and awareness as she raced onto a long ball and found the back of the net in the 78th minute.
A double from Gulia Gwinn cemented the victory for the hosts, who have now collected nine points from three matches.
Despite blowing away their opponents on the night, Germany’s women’s coach, Horst Hrubesch, expressed his dissatisfaction with the team’s performance.
“If you let yourself be surprised in the first minute, it will be difficult,” the 73-year-old admitted. “We made a lot of simple mistakes, but we also need to make better use of our chances in the first half. We have a good mentality.”
Australia bottles in friendly witH China
Elsewhere, Australia were held to a 1-1 draw by China PR on home soil during an international friendly on Friday. The Matildas fell behind at the half-hour mark when the visitors opened the scoring through Linyan Zhang.
When it looked like the hosts were heading for their first defeat of the year, Michelle Heymann notched an equalizer at the death.
Matildas coach Tony Gustavsson was not fazed by his team’s failure to get a victory, as he emphasized that this was an experimental match to evaluate his team before the Paris 2024 Olympics.
“We had almost six different starters today that didn’t feature in our most common starting lineup in the World Cup,” Gustavsson said.
Australia will face the USWNT, Germany, and Zambia in Group B of the Paris 2024 Olympics women’s tournament. The Copper Queens, however, are the only side from the group not participating in the current FIFA international window.
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