Team USA 3 – N. Korea 0
COLUMBUS – They may not have played with the kind of intensity that’s come to be synonymous with the way the American Women’s National Soccer team plays the game, but the country’s sweethearts advanced to the FIFA World Cup quarterfinals yesterday with a 3-0 win over North Korea simply because they were a better team.
In front of a sold-out crowd of 22,828, some of them grown men dressed as female soccer players, including one gentleman in a sports bra, the U.S. earned a match Wednesday at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro against Norway, the only team in the world that owns a winning record (18-16-2) against the Americans.
The U.S. women were too fast, too skilled, and converted on too many more of their chances for the North Koreans to put up any kind of fight. But this game will be remembered not for what took place on the field, but for the woman who never set foot on it.
Mia Hamm, coming off a three-point performance against Nigeria, for the first time in her legendary World Cup career did not play, while United States coach April Heinrichs kept a large number of her veterans on the bench for the first half. Shannon Boxx, Hamm, Julie Foudy and Cindy Parlow, who all started the two previous matches in the tournament, were used as reserves yesterday.
“I’m sure it’s a little disappointing for her not to play,” Heinrichs said of Hamm.
Hamm was scheduled to play at least half the game, but after the U.S. went ahead 3-0, there was no reason to play its best player and possibly risk injury.
“It’s not worth the risk,” Heinrichs said.
The United States took a 1-0 lead in the 15th minute when human bulldozer Abby Wambach, who also earned a yellow card for taking out Kum Ran O in the corner, scored on a penalty kick after she was held in front of the Korean net. She tucked her shot in the lower left corner, faking Korean goalkeeper Jong Hui Ri into lunging in the opposite direction only to come up with a fistful of grass.
Less than three minutes into the second half, the Americans built a two-goal lead when Foudy found Cat Reddick, who is still enrolled at UNC, on the left post for an uncontested tap-in off a corner kick. The lead swelled to three when Shannon MacMillan found Reddick for her second goal in the 65th minute, this one coming off a header from 10 yards out.