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Milestone For Soccer Legend As USA Downs NZ
by Jeremy Ruane
The Olympic women’s soccer champions, Team USA, predictably conquered their far less experienced New Zealand counterparts 5-0 in front of a boisterous 16,554-strong crowd at Portland’s PGE Park on October 4, NZ time, in a match noteworthy for a significant goalscoring milestone recorded by one of soccer’s genuine legends.
As the New Zealand quartet of Dana Humby, Pam Yates, Anne Ormrod and Kirsty Yallop made their international debuts, lining up against them was Kristine Lilly, who, with 284 appearances to her name, boasts over double the entire tally of caps boasted by the New Zealand squad named to take part in this tour.
When she scored the USA’s fourth goal, in the 66th minute of this largely one-sided affair, Lilly joined an exclusive club in women’s soccer, and the game was literally stopped to recognise the feat.
After having been engulfed by her team-mates, she was presented with the match ball there and then upon netting her one hundredth goal in international women’s soccer, a feat only four other players had achieved prior to Lilly’s game-stopping strike.
"I hit it well and it was a great ball by Mac (Shannon MacMillan)", said Lilly of the goal on www.ussoccer.com. "It was just a great moment. It was a great crowd and great to have my team come smother me. It was just a lot of fun".
One of the players to have already achieved the significant goalscoring milestone got rid of a personal monkey from her back in this match. Mia Hamm finally added New Zealand to the lengthy list of countries against which she has scored with a double-strike in this affair, taking her goal haul on the international stage to a staggering 156.
Her first, struck in the fifteenth minute, was the only goal of a first half which was very pleasing from the point of view of New Zealand’s captain, Rebecca Smith. "We played with a great deal of purpose, especially in the first half, and a lot of heart", said the skipper after the match.
"We came out with a more aggressive approach to the game than the Americans, for whom this victory tour is very much about enjoyment, and playing for fun. And while we share the enjoyment side of things, we’re also playing for our own development, both individually and as a team, as we work towards our twin long-term goals of China 2007 and 2008".
Smith was proud of her team’s efforts, despite the fact they were comfortably beaten. "We all did really well, and played well as a team. Of course, there are those who will always ‘bust ass’ for the cause, and there were times when some of the younger players were a little in awe of their opponents, but overall, I felt we played as well as we could for the full ninety minutes.
"A more accurate scoreline would have been 3-0, to be honest. As well as scoring a couple of very nice goals, they also netted a couple of easy ones, but when I compare this performance with our last game, against North Korea in February, it was like night and day".
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Injury-wise, the team came through relatively unscathed, save for the usual cluster of bumps and scrapes which you get in any match. Some of the latter were a result of playing on the Astroturf which graces PGE Park - only the third time in the team’s history that the US women have played on an artificial surface.
"The crowd was awesome, too!", declared Smith. "It was a full house, and the atmosphere was something else again!", said the Kiwi captain, whose thoughts on the faithful’s contribution to proceedings were echoed by Hamm on www.ussoccer.com
"Tonight was about this crowd and Kristine Lilly getting her one hundredth goal. We're just happy that she could do it in such a great environment like we had here tonight in Portland", declared the most prolific goalscorer in international soccer history.
Hamm, whose first goal was set up by Abby Wambach, netted her second goal in the 55th minute with a classic diving header to meet an Angela Hucles cross - the first goal of three in an eleven-minute spell.
Wambach herself found the mark in the 59th minute, her effort going in off the hands of Yates after Lilly had prised open New Zealand’s defence. But before the legend’s goalscoring milestone came to pass in the 66th minute, Lilly had a goal disallowed moments beforehand, Hamm having strayed offside in the process of setting up the only player to have made more international appearances than herself.
Cat Reddick concluded the scoring with an 81st minute header from a MacMillan corner which Yates could only parry over the line. The ‘keeper, along with those wearing all-white in front of her, played her part in thwarting a number of other American raids throughout the course of a match played in 22C temperatures.
For their part, New Zealand fired a couple of shots, although Priscilla Duncan and Hayley Moorwood will baulk at the idea that Row Z was in greater danger from their efforts than the target itself!!
But it was largely a rearguard effort from the Kiwi contingent, who head away from the danger of the seemingly soon-to-erupt Mt. St. Helens, fifty miles up the road from Portland, to Cincinnati on Monday morning, US time.
There, they will spend the bulk of the coming week training and preparing for their second match of the series against Team USA, which takes place at the 65,535 capacity Paul Brown Stadium, the home of NFL side the Cincinnati Bengals, on Monday, October 10 at 9am, NZ time.
USA: Scurry (Luckenbill, 46); Rampone, Reddick, Chastain (Mitts, 46), Markgraf; Wagner (Hucles, 46), Boxx, Foudy, Lilly (Roberts, 70); Hamm (Parlow, 61), Wambach (MacMillan, 59).
New Zealand: Yates; Humby, Jackman, R. Smith, Ray (J. Simpson, 40 (booked, 89)); Keinzley (Ormrod, 46), Moorwood (Meo, 84), Duncan (Sowden, 46), Cogle (Yallop, 67); N. Smith (Thompson, 57), Hearn
Referee: Karl Seitz
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