The U.S. Women's National Team continued their successful post-Olympic tour of the United States on Sunday with their latest victory. Only this time, the Americans had a tougher time than expected and showed the resiliency that made them Olympic champions.
An Australian team made up of mainly of youth national team players gave the U.S. all they could handle, taking a 1-0 lead into half-time and threatening to hang a loss on head coach Pia Sundhage in her next-to-last match in charge. Alex Morgan played the hero yet again, scoring an equalizer before drawing the game-winning penalty, converted by Shannon Boxx, as the U.S. Women posted a 2-1 victory.
Australian veteran Lisa de Vanna gave the visitors a 1-0 lead in the 34th minute when she torched the U.S. defense with a long run and finish past Hope Solo. The Australian team held onto the lead until the 55th minute, when Morgan converted a Heather O'Reilly pass to make the score 1-1. The Americans took the lead just six minutes later when Boxx converted a PK drawn by Morgan, who was taken down after latching on to a Tobin Heath pass.
Here are the match highlights:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GCtzJY_StA]
What did you think of the match? Surprised the U.S. had so much trouble with a glorified Australian youth team? Who would you like to see replace Sundhage as head coach?
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