Ferns off pace in heavy defeat
There must be something about Cincinnati.
The Football Ferns have now played the United States twice in the midwestern city, and both times they have been on the receiving end of a thumping.
Yesterday, it was a 5-0 defeat at Nippert Stadium, that joined the 6-0 one they suffered in 2004 - their worst result against the US, who are currently ranked No 1 by Fifa and are the reigning world champions.
The Ferns had been hoping to build off their strong finish in Saturday’s game between the two teams, a 3-1 loss, but were off the pace throughout.
The Kiwis allowed the Americans to dominate proceedings in a way they didn’t in Denver - but which probably should have been expected, given the home team’s relative wealth of talent and recent game time.
It took a while for Ferns goalkeeper Erin Nayler to be tested in her 50th international appearance - the closest the US went in the opening stretch was in the 25th minute, when Mallory Pugh shaved the left-hand upright with a shot from the edge of the box.
The Ferns had little to be happy with when it came to the attacking side of their game, bar for a few minutes around the half-hour mark, where they ventured down the left through captain Ali Riley and won a corner, but could only produce a half-chance for each of their two strikers, Hannah Wilkinson and Rosie White.
Down the other end, the US kept coming, and when they finally took the lead, in the 36th minute, it was in extremely soft
fashion. Lindsey Horan had just been introduced as a replacement for Rose Lavelle when she climbed over Ria Percival at the edge of the box to win a long ball played forward by Sam Mewis, and sent her header over Nayler, who was well off her line.
Eight minutes later, the hosts doubled their lead in exquisite fashion, as a series of first-time passes, the final one by Horan, helped to release Pugh in behind down the right, where she sent her shot curling into the narrow gap between Nayler and her near post.
Things got worse within a minute of the second half starting, when newly-introduced substitute Alex Morgan deceived Percival and received the ball in space on the left side of the box before firing home from an acute angle.
Nine minutes later, the US added a fourth, through Lynn Williams, who started an attacking move by breaking past Riley down the right flank, then managed to get into the box and head home a cross that came in from the left.
It was Pugh and Morgan who combined down the left to add a fifth goal, in the 69th minute.
Morgan’s shot, from about where she scored her first, was a rocket that Nayler had no chance of stopping.
Ferns coach Tony Readings talked before the tour about how these games would give him a chance to see where his side were at, 20 months out from the 2019 World Cup, and the answer he received was clear.
They are capable of footing it with the world’s best for patches, as they showed on Saturday, but when their opponents are on song, as the US were yesterday, they are still a long way off.