ST. LOUIS — The U.S. women’s soccer team pulled off another victory in Game 2 in the first round of the World Cup on Sunday.
USA defeated Chile 3-0 after having many additional scoring opportunities that they just couldn’t quite finish.
Winning Game 2 does put USA in first place in their group and will automatically advance to the knockout round.
Carli Lloyd, the oldest player on the U.S. women’s team had two solid goals in this game with one being a header off a corner kick.
However, Lloyd missed a big scoring opportunity in the second half on a penalty kick.
Julie Ertz also scored on an impressive header off a corner kick in the first half.
There were several changes made in the starting lineup in this game... some that seemed to be a little surprising.
Head coach Jill Ellis started with Carli Lloyd, Mallory Pugh and Christen Press in the forward line.
At midfield she replaced Rose Lavelle on the right with Morgan Brian and at defense Ali Krieger started on the right with Tierna Davidson on the left.
The St. Louis native Becky Sauerbrunn was back in the lineup at her usual center back position after a minor quad injury.
At halftime, Ellis took out Julie Ertz to give Jessica McDonald some minutes in her first World Cup game debut.
Ellis said she made these lineup changes to see who is ready to play out of this group when it comes down to the bigger and more challenging games in the tournament.
Their next match against No. 9 Sweden might be a bit more difficult after beating No. 39 Chile 3-0.
Even though Chile’s goalkeeper had some outstanding saves and a 3-0 victory is still a comfortable win, Chile is ranked four spots higher than No. 34 Thailand who we beat 13-0 in Game 1.
Should we be worried about USA going into their third game against Sweden?
Maybe Ellis needs to adjust her starting lineup once again... but I guess we will find out when they play Sweden on Thursday, June 20.
To view the U.S. women's soccer schedule, visit their website.
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