U.S. Has Reply for Norway
Last year in the Algarve Cup women’s international soccer tournament, world champion Norway handed the United States its worst-ever loss.
Thursday was payback time.
On a bright afternoon at the Estadio Municipal, the U.S. turned goals by Julie Foudy and Kristine Lilly into a 2-1 victory over the Norwegians to book a place in Saturday’s championship final against China. A year ago, Norway beat the Americans, 4-1.
Just as Thursday’s game was a replay of the 1996 Olympic semifinal, won, 2-1, in overtime by the U.S., so Saturday’s game will be a replay of the gold medal-game from the Atlanta Olympics.
The U.S., which has failed in four previous attempts to win the Algarve Cup, faces a Chinese team that also has never won the tournament. On Thursday, China won its third game of the event, defeating Australia, 2-0, in Lagos.
The only bad news for the American team was a neck injury to captain and central defender Carla Overbeck that might keep her out of the final.
“She sprained her neck,” Bill Heinz, the U.S. team doctor, said after the game. “This is a re-injury of an old injury that she had a couple of years ago. We’re going to go over and get some X-rays and make sure she didn’t chip any bones or anything, but she’s going to be pretty sore for several days.”
Said Overbeck: “I feel all right. A little sore. I went in for a head ball and I think on my way down I must have hit somebody. Someone said I landed [awkwardly] on the ground. But we’re playing in the championship, so. . . .”
Said Heinz: “It’s hard to say [if Overbeck can play Saturday]. It depends on how quickly she can recover.”
The U.S. did some pretty good recovering of its own after falling behind early in the game.
Former University of Massachusetts goalkeeper Briana Scurry made a superb diving save off a shot by Norway’s Ann Kristen Aarones in the seventh minute, but was powerless to stop Aarones from scoring four minutes later.
A corner kick by Norwegian midfielder Tone Gunn Frustol fell to Silje Jorgensen, whose fierce shot from 18 yards was parried by Scurry. The ball rebounded to Aarones and the 6-foot-1 striker slammed it into the net.
It was the first goal scored against Scurry since June, a streak of 740 minutes.
“I was disappointed,” Scurry said. “I only actually saw the shot late. I saw the ball go to the girl [Jorgensen], but then I was screened and I didn’t see the ball until it was flying by and then it was just a total reaction [save].”
Scurry and U.S. Coach Tony DiCicco thought Aarones might have been offside when she struck the rebound.
“I think Bri [Scurry] has to make sure there is no rebound,” DiCicco said. “But I think she saw it so late because it came through a crowd.”
Trailing, 1-0, the U.S. tied the score within a minute. A pass from Lilly found Foudy inside the penalty area and the midfielder from Laguna Niguel slipped a shot inside the right post from about six yards for her 28th international goal.
In the 14th minute, Mia Hamm curled a shot off the Norwegian crossbar as the U.S. took the game to its opponent. And it was Hamm who began the sequence that led to the winning goal.
Taking the ball down the left flank in the 55th minute, she found Tiffeny Milbrett in the corner and Milbrett’s pass across the face of the Norway net eluded the defense but found Lilly, who made no mistake in firing it past goalkeeper Bente Nordby.
“We’re in the final,” DiCicco said. “Any time you beat Norway, it’s a good result. They’re the defending world champions, they looked very sharp and they have an outstanding team.”
Norway took the defeat with a shrug.
“We are on schedule for the World Cup,” said defender Gro Espeseth, pointing out that this is essentially preseason for the snow-bound Norwegians who have been confined to playing indoors until coming to Portugal.
“This is only our third time on grass this year,” she said. “We looked OK. Of course we hoped to tie them or win. But we looked good.”
A tie would have put Norway in the title game.
Said Norway Coach Per-Mathias Hogmo: “We wondered how our new midfield would stand up against a strong U.S. team. I’m quite happy with the way some of the young players did it today.
“Today, the United States was a little bit better than us and I think they deserved to win.”
In other games Thursday, Denmark overwhelmed Portugal, 5-0, and Sweden and Finland played to a 0-0 tie.
