United States’ Lindsey Horan (10) celebrates after scoring a aim in the course of the first half of the CONCACAF Gold Cup girls’s soccer match ultimate match towards Brazil, Sunday, March 10, 2024, in San Diego.
AP Picture/Gregory Bull
SAN DIEGO (AP) — Lindsey Horan scored on a header in first-half stoppage time and the USA went on to beat Brazil 1-0 on Sunday to win the CONCACAF Girls’s Gold Cup.
The US lifted the trophy regardless of being shocked by a loss to Mexico within the group stage of the match. It was the primary girls’s Gold Cup, created to carry groups within the area extra significant competitors.
“It was a troublesome recreation. Brazil challenged us otherwise,” Horan stated. “I’m actually, actually pleased with us discovering a solution to get a aim and ending out the sport and getting a trophy.”
It was the fourth time that the USA confronted Brazil in a match ultimate. The Individuals additionally gained the earlier three, together with the 2004 and 2008 Olympics.
The sport drew a sellout crowd of 31,528 to San Diego’s Snapdragon Stadium, a document crowd for a CONCACAF girls’s match.
Horan scored simply moments into stoppage time with a header off a well-placed lofted go from Emily Fox. It was Horan’s third aim of the match, her earlier targets had been from the penalty spot.
Lynn Williams almost scored a second for the USA within the 79th minute however the play was offsides. Casey Krueger headed out a harmful Brazilian cross within the ultimate moments.
Brazil outshot the USA 12-7 and at occasions appeared the extra dominant workforce.
“It’s not at all times fairly, and this was a recreation that we simply grinded by,” defender Crystal Dunn stated. “We bought the job achieved and that’s an important.”
The US was upset within the group stage of the match by a 2-0 loss to Mexico — simply the second loss within the 43-game sequence.
The Individuals rebounded with a 3-0 win over Colombia within the quarterfinals, earlier than advancing to the ultimate on penalties after a rain-soaked 2-2 draw with Canada within the semifinals.
“That was a loopy match, however completed sturdy,” ahead Alex Morgan stated. “That’s what mattered. So many gamers arising huge time.”
Brazil, which was considered one of 4 CONMEBOL groups within the match, had gained every of its 5 matches within the match, together with a 3-0 victory over Mexico within the semifinals, scoring 15 targets.
The Brazilians allowed simply two whole targets within the workforce’s first aggressive match underneath coach Arthur Elias, who took over for Pia Sundhage after Brazil did not get out of the group stage at summer season’s Girls’s World Cup.
“The American gamers are very sturdy bodily talking and I imagine that we had an incredible efficiency in the course of the recreation,” Elias stated by a translator after the sport. “We had possibilities to attain targets as we speak. The U.S. had some strengths that we had been in a position to cease, however they had been very properly ready as properly to play our workforce as we speak.”
Likewise, the USA was enjoying its first match underneath interim coach Twila Kilgore, who assumed her position after the U.S. parted methods with coach Vlatko Andonovski following the workforce’s early exit from the World Cup.
The US employed Emma Hayes because the workforce’s coach, however she is concluding the season with Chelsea within the Girls’s Tremendous League.
“I’m simply so joyful for the workforce,” Kilgore stated. “This can be a workforce and a program that may at all times have consideration and expectations on it. We at all times say that stress is a privilege and it’s, but it surely’s one other factor to stroll the stroll.”
Each Brazil and the USA have certified for this summer season’s Olympics in France.
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