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Lloyd hat trick lifts U.S. women past Mexico to cusp of Olympic berth

USWNT_SB_20120124_Carli Lloyd Lauren Cheney_105

Photo by Stephen Brashear/ISIphotos.com

They might have been held to single digits on the scoreboard for the first time during the CONCACAF Olympic qualifying tournament, but the U.S. women remain on a roll.

Carli Lloyd netted a hat trick, and the U.S. women's national team exacted a bit of revenge on Mexico, capturing Group B with a 4-0 victory at BC Place and setting up semifinal bout with Group A runner-up Costa Rica. The winner of Friday's match will clinch one of the region's two berths at this summer's Olympics. 

It was Mexico that defeated the U.S. women in the build-up to the 2011 FIFA Women's World Cup and forced them into a tougher qualifying path. The United States returned the favor, forcing Mexico to face host Canada for the region's other Olympic berth. Pia Sundhage's women continued their trend of getting off to a quick start, as Lloyd and Heather O'Reilly scored in the seventh and eighth minutes, respectively, to ease any early tension. 

Lloyd finished off her hat trick in the second half, heading home a Lauren Cheney free kick in the 57th minute and finishing off a squared ball from Rachel Buehler from six yards out off another set piece in the 86th minute.  

Highlights of the goals and post-match reaction from the U.S. women are after the jump:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0U3E782y2A]

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-aJPRrWmFo]

NOTES

  • Lloyd has scored in all three games this tournament, tallying five goals in all. With her assist, Cheney has a tournament-best six helpers.
  • Following a 14-0 win over the Dominican Republic and a 13-0 victory over Guatemala, the U.S. women outscored their opponents 31-0 in the group stage. 
  • Costa Rica, meanwhile, went 2-1-0 in the group stage, defeating Cuba and Haiti by matching 2-0 scorelines before being blown out by Canada, 5-1, on Monday.
  • Goalkeeper Hope Solo picked up a right quadriceps injury during the game but played all 90 minutes. According to the Associated Press, she expects to be ready for Friday's match. If she cannot go, backup Nicole Barnhart would get the call.

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What did you think of the U.S. women's performance? Expecting another comfortable win in the semifinals?

Share your thoughts below.

Comments

  1. the Mexican women literally left the flanks uncovered, stacking the middle with all bodies as often as possible, yes? smart of the US women to dominate the flanks and look to serve Abby and co. and force fouls to stop them, imo…and it worked

    Lloyd gets it done differently than classic #10s, I agree on that. Do you deny her effectiveness?

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  2. I hear you. I think the truth is somewhere between “this sport is a joke” and “that losing team is really bad.” Blowouts certainly do happen in the men’s game, but this was supposed to be the eight best teams in the region, almost equivalent to the men’s Hexagonal. You don’t generally see double-digit blowouts at that stage of a qualifying tournament. Things are a little skewed because of the dearth of decent teams in CONCACAF.

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  3. Also, in my FIFA # analogy, Portugal v Kuwait is Canada v Cuba. That game finished 2-0 to Canada.

    The U.S./DR game would be Spain v Saudi Arabia.

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  4. I just matched up the FIFA numbers, the teams listed above don’t necessarily reflect the actual quality gap. But there have been games in men’s international soccer with scorelines of 14-0 or even higher, including in qualifying tournaments, and no one looks at those games and says “This tournament is a joke as is men’s soccer”. No, they say “wow, X team is really bad” or “Y team is really good” without commenting on the overall state of the sport.

    I mean, the whole point of qualifying is to get the strongest teams to the final tournament, be it the World Cup or the Olympics or a continental championship. There are ALWAYS blowout scores at some point in EVERY confederation’s qualifying rounds, in both men and women’s soccer.

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  5. BTW, here’s the difference between Carli Lloyd and Abby Wambach: One spells “class” with all five letters; the other forgets the first two.

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  6. Good for Carli Lloyd! She is the only person on the 2007 WWC team that showed any class in dealing with Hope Solo. Instead of going with the flow and following the “leadership” of Abby Wambach and Kristine Lilly in trying to destroy the spirit of another human being, she tried to encourage Solo. May she experience many more such successes

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  7. It is interesting that Mexico doesn’t start Teresa Noyola who was an impressive player on the USA U20’s a couple of years back and is one of their best players. BTW: for the folks on here who are comparing the US vs. Mexico men’s vs. women’s rivalry, many of the Mexican women were born and raised in the US. There have even been reports of tension in the locker room because some these US born Mexican players didn’t speak much Spanish.

    The US is playing much better than a year ago. The women are possessing the ball, more varied in their attack, organized on defense, and have one of the best goalkeepers in the world (there is a huge discrepancy in goalkeeping in the women’s game compared to the men’s).

    To the person complaining about the discrepancies in women’s soccer, you should direct your complaint to the super-macho federations in Central America. The Guatemalan women were wearing men’s uniforms which hung down to their knees. If these federations and countries would stop discriminating against women and pump money into their women’s programs, the level would improve in Concacaf. And this would in turn help the US improve with better competititon.

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  8. I thought that for all the possession the US had, they had way to few good scoring chances. The problem was ineffective center midfield play. Forwards were getting nothing from the middle and the US resorted to crosses from the flanks as an attacking strategy.

    My biggest complaint with Pia is her fierce loyalty to certain players when she has better options available. In the middle of that argument are Lloyd and Boxx. It’s hard to knock someone that’s scored 3 goals but the facts are she turned the ball over a lot and created nothing on substantial on attack. It’s nice to wear the number #10 but not if you can’t create. Lloyd doesnt create.

    The exception was Sydney in as first sub instead of Morgan… I bet there’s some unhappy campers today

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  9. In the first 30 minutes I thought it was going to get ugly for the Mexican girls team, but they they managed to get better in defending. Although in set pieces they stink.

    Overall, our girls are just BEASTS! Lloyd & O’Reilly were terrific. The young girl Loreux is climbing up the chart fo sho. I still believe that Alex is the best striker on top with WamB, but definitely this Loreux girl seems to be coming up quick. She reminds me a bit of old Chuck D the way she goes about setting herself up. She needs to play for the USMNT if you ask me!

    And what is up with leaving Solo on for 90? Clearly she was hurting through out the whole 2nd half. BAd coach decision.

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  10. I don’t think anyone is saying that this tournament has been a thing of technical beauty, but using it to say that women’s soccer is a joke is ridiculous.

    Looking at the FIFA rankings (yeah I know, take with a grain of salt) Group A was #s 7, 41, 62, and 96 and Group B was #s 1, 21, 85, and 88.

    Looking at the men’s FIFA rankings (even bigger grain of salt) that would be groups of: Portugal, Venezuela, Costa Rica, and Kuwait; and Spain, Australia, Angola, and Saudi Arabia.

    How great, exactly, do you think a game between Angola and Saudi Arabia would be? How big a disparity do you think there is between Portugal and Kuwait? Does that make men’s soccer a joke, too?

    The tournament set-up is ridiculous, but that reflects only on the organizers of the tournament, not the entire sport.

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  11. Someone put some bile in your coffee?

    You don’t have to watch this stuff.

    Heaven forbid we should have the opportunity to watch some cute girls play the sport we love at a high level. (Yes, I realize that sounds sexist.)

    Personally, I’d rather watch our ladies than any of the traditional American sports.

    Any day of the week.

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  12. This ‘tournament’ is a joke as is still women’s soccer.

    The same problem exists in men and womens ice hockey: a handful of teams can play the game and the rest are just awful.

    This is not a womens’s sports diatribe, simply that women’s soccer is still a very, very young sport and the differences between the best and the mediocre is still too big.
    The women’s game does very well in basketball, volleyball and handball simply because those sports have been around longer on the female side.
    Soccer will get there (hockey never will) with time but for now, unless you are wactching the WC, its just really bad.
    The only thing more tedious than watching a 10-0 game is watching Canada vs US AGAIN.
    But even when you have bad teams like Haiti and Cuba play themselves, the caliber is simply pathetic and not even worthy of college soccer. lack of conditioning, incapability of making two passes, kicking the ball away like a 9yr old all the time, the only good plays is when one player who is obviously heads above everyone else does an individual action. Because the level is so vast that a team can have a very good player on a team with another who can barely run backwards or make a simple 3ft pass with their left foot.
    I have seen U-15 girls team this summer who looked more cohesive and knowledgeable (this isnt a third world rant, Cuba has world class teams in the top 4 womens teams) sports) and I have no problems sitting through the girls games.
    But this… this tournament was like every cliche about soccer put into one. ‘If you want someone to hate the sport, force them to watch this.’ I was told this by my son and niece who live and breath soccer.

    I tried, I really did try and watched at least 45mins of every game I could but the qualifying tournament was absolutely horrible. Ill be there at the TV for the Canada vs USA version 12,497 but we are still a long way from getting non-soccer fans from watching this (id rather not force anyone to watch this).

    Btw, before the sexism charges come out, I watched all the euro volleyball, womens soccer WC and Handball WC (where little Norway beat French powerhouse) last year, so I have no problems with women’s sports, only huge disparity.

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  13. C’Mon the U: “class” displayed by Mexican women? You must not have watched the match. If you had watched, you would have seen Mexican’s captain, Dominguez, shoving LePeillbet in the face, and down to the ground, in frustration, after a play was over. That was not seen by the official, apparently. (Ussoccer’s matchtracker: 63′ Dominquez late on LePeilbet, no call).

    And Mexican second-half sub, #16, barreling into USA’s Sauerbrunn (from the side) well after a clearing pass. That resulted in a stoppage of play (Sauerbrunn was shaken up), but no card. Simply a verbal warning. As matchtracker stated: (68′ Sauerbrunn clobbered behind the ball, but no call). Reply showed intent to collide with a player from her blind side, well after ball was cleared. This was far worse than the earlier shove – it was dirty and could have resulted in real injury.

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  14. Pia made a mistake not subbing for Solo in my opinion, especially once the US was up 3-0. No excuse for giving her a chance to turn a slight injury into something more serious during a diving save or something.

    The good news is we got away with that blunder….

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  15. Was very pleasantly surprised with the class of the Mexican team. No red cards and no head hunting despite losing the game.

    Glad to know it’s just the men that are j.o.’s.

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