Germany, China reach quarters
OTTAWA, Ontario — After coasting through the preliminary round of the Women’s World Cup, forwards Anja Mittag and Celia Sasic provided a reminder of why Germany deserves its top billing.
Sasic scored twice, and Mittag added a goal and drew a penalty to set up another, in helping Germany advance to the quarterfinals with a 4-1 win to eliminate fifthranked Sweden in a round of 16 game Saturday.
“Benchmark? Yes,” German coach Silvia Neid said through an interpreter. “We measure ourselves against what we know we can achieve. It was a very important game, maybe it was a key match because we haven’t had many games of this quality yet in this World Cup.”
Germany’s only firstround blemish was a 1-1 tie with Norway. Otherwise, the Germans routed the Ivory Coast and Thailand in scoring a tournamentbest 15 goals.
Now the two-time World Cup champions will travel to Montreal, where they will face the winner of Sunday’s match between third-ranked France and South Korea.
Disappointing as the finish was for Sweden, which ended the tournament without a victory, coach Pia Sundhage acknowledged it was going to take a near-perfect effort to beat Germany.
“Germany is a very good team, and they deserve to advance,” Sundhage said. “We fought and we tried, but it was not good enough.”
Mittag opened the scoring in the 24th minute, then Sasic scored the next two — including one on a penalty kick — in staking Germany to a 3-0 lead by the 78th minute.
The Swedes countered with Linda Sembrant scoring on a header off Therese Sjogran’s free kick from outside the box in the 82nd minute.
The Swedes played in their third time zone in two weeks, and had little rest after traveling from Edmonton, Alberta, to Ottawa on Thursday.
CHINA 1, CAMEROON 0
Wang Shanshan scored early and China held on to stay alive with a knockout-round victory over Cameroon in Edmonton, Alberta.
China, ranked No. 16 in the world, will play the winner of Monday night’s game between the United States and Colombia.
China played without its coach Hao Wei on the sidelines after he was sent off from the team’s final group-stage match against New Zealand.
Cameroon, No. 53, was the lowest ranked of the 16 teams that advanced.