Mallory Swanson scored a pair of targets simply moments aside within the first half and the US opened their Olympics marketing campaign with a 3-0 victory Thursday evening over Zambia, giving new coach Emma Hayes a win in her first main event with the group.
Trinity Rodman additionally scored for the US, who’re hoping so as to add a file fifth gold medal to their Olympic assortment.
Overmatched from the beginning, Zambia had been diminished to 10 gamers within the thirty third minute when Pauline Zulu was despatched off with a purple card. Hayes’s group dominated the early parts of the sport, maintaining 70% of the ball and posting 13 photographs with a 3.4 xG within the opening 25 minutes.
Zambia, overflowing with attacking gifted, struggled to create any alternatives earlier than they discovered themselves in a three-goal gap. Star forwards Barbra Banda and Racheal Kundananji did not register a shot within the first-half, and will muster solely three efforts on aim throughout 90 minutes.
Banda is a confirmed scorer, with 12 targets in 12 video games this season for the Orlando Delight within the Nationwide Ladies’s Soccer League. On the Tokyo Video games, Banda had a pair of back-to-back hat-tricks within the group stage.
Hayes took over the US group in late Might after ending out the season with Chelsea within the Ladies’s Tremendous League. She shook issues up a bit along with her Olympic roster, leaving star ahead Alex Morgan, a veteran of three Olympics, at residence.
Hayes is charged with main the People as they search to distance themselves from the frustration of final summer season’s Ladies’s World Cup, after they crashed out within the spherical of 16. It’s been a robust begin. In her first 4 video games in cost, the US have saved 4 successive clear sheets. That defensive solidity was matched with attacking aptitude within the the coach’s first aggressive recreation in cost, with the US ending with eight efforts heading in the right direction.
Rodman, making her Olympic debut, scored within the seventeenth minute. US captain Lindsey Horan handed to Rodman, who deftly shot round onrushing Zambian goalkeeper Ngambo Musole.
Swanson scored twice inside 70 seconds within the twenty fourth and twenty fifth minutes to present the People a 3-0 lead within the Group B match in Good.
The match marked the fourth-straight recreation the USWNT have saved a clear sheet underneath Hayes.
US ahead Sophia Smith left the sport with what gave the impression to be an ankle damage late within the first half and was changed by Lynn Williams. Williams was initially an alternate on Hayes’ Olympic roster, however Catarina Macario was unable to play in France due to minor knee irritation.
It was the primary time the US have confronted Zambia on the worldwide stage. Subsequent up is Germany on 28 July in Marseille, whereas Zambia will face Australia in Good on the identical day.
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