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USWNT Woman of the Match: Julie Ertz

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The U.S. women’s national team rebounded from an opening match defeat at the Tokyo Olympics and Julie Ertz was all over the field in the lopsided victory over New Zealand.

Ertz registered two assists in the 6-1 win, earning SBI Woman of the Match for her stellar outing. Ertz edged Christen Press, Rose Lavelle, and Lindsey Horan for WOTM honors.

The USWNT captain played the entire 90 minutes in Saitama on Saturday, sparking Vlatko Andonovski’s side to a needed result in its second group stage match.

With the Americans already up 1-0, Ertz helped double their lead before halftime with a headed pass to Horan off a corner kick. Horan made no mistake from close range, doubling the USWNT’s lead to 2-0 before halftime.

Ertz kept the corner kick in bounds before cycling a header back into the box for Horan to score.

Ertz assisted for the second time in the match in the 80th minute, crossing into the box and allowing Christen Press to score her first goal of the tournament. Not only did Ertz register two assists, but she also helped the USWNT to a 62%-to-38% advantage in possession, and covered plenty of ground defensively against the Kiwi’s.

What did you think of Ertz’s performance? Who was your pick for Woman of the Match? Do you back the USWNT to defeat Australia in its final group stage match on Tuesday?

Share your thoughts below.

Comments

  1. Both Ertz and Horan was very good. I would give the edge to Horan.
    Sonnett was really poor with her touches and had a lot of giveaways. Hope O’Hara can clean things up Tuesday in possession and moving the ball.

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  2. With only 1 Group Match to go, it appears that the knockout round matches are pretty well set. Assuming that the U. S. gets at least a tie against Australia, here are the First Round match-ups and bracket progressions.

    1) Canada E-2 vs Netherlands F-2 2) Great Britain E-1 vs Australia G-3
    3) Sweden G-1 vs Japan E-3 4) Brazil F-1 vs USA G-2

    Semis 5) Winner of Game 1 vs winner of 4 6) Winner of 2 vs 3

    Final 7) Winner of 5 vs Winner of 6)

    Because of possible change in Goal Differential, Netherlands & Brazil might be inter-changed.

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  3. I thought our women had a GOOD Game today, but not necessarily a GREAT game. Still too many off-sides and defensive glitches; one of which lead to the only goal of the game for NZ. But the offense definitely came to life with 6 goals against a team which doesn’t give up a lot. I say 6 because both of the goals which were listed as “own goals” were on their way to being offensive goals before a defensive player tried to deflect the ball away only to simply change its direction into the net. On the last one, Christen Press was crossing the ball to Alex Morgan, who was out of the picture, and had it gone thru, Morgan would have had an EZ tap in to an empty net. And YES, for Julie Ertz as Player of the Match. Since her move to Midfield, I have felt she has been the BEST 2-Way player on the team.

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  4. Starting yesterday the US soccer federation gets to drain more resources defending themselves against the USWNT’s appeal of their failed lawsuit.

    Maybe they’ll get some good flex pics after beating New Zealand (population 27MM sheep, 5MM people) to drum up public support?

    Can’t get behind this team, sorry.

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    • Uh, okay, Dave.

      Run on back to Gateway Pundit with the rest of the troglodytes. The ladies played a lot better today. Clearly they were playing mad, which they needed to be.

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    • OK fine, I guess that did come off a little Breitbart, didn’t it. But it’s a huge bummer that they won’t let go of their non-soccer issues, and they’re still all over the news for the wrong reasons, and they can’t just take a pause on it to represent the whole country rather than just half of it. And it does drain resources. But I can be supportive of good soccer so I will wish them well.

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