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SOCCER MEDIA REPORTS:

UNITED STATES 6 CANADA 2 13th May 2007

From Media Reports

In front of 8, 569 fans at the Pizza Hut centre, Abby Wambach of the United States scored two goals as the US soccer team outscored Canada 6-2 in an exhibition game in Fresno, Texas on Saturday night. Kristine Lilly and Lindsay Tarpley each had a goal and an assist for the United States.

The U.S. Women’s team wore pink jerseys, a first for their program, and the jerseys will be auctioned off in support of breast cancer awareness. The Americans have now won seven straight games and are 20-0-3 since their loss to Germany on penalty kicks in the 2006 Algarve Cup final. For their part, Canada scored two goals in the game, for the first time in 11 meetings between the teams dating back to June 2001.

"The United Sates team is very skilful and good, but we had trouble capitalizing in the first half," said a disappointed Canadian Coach Even Pellerud. "'It is hard to recover from the major score box errors we conceded four times in the opening 45 minutes. The early goals affected our confidence and the spirit of the team and we did not play well in the first five minutes. The positive is that we managed to play well in the second half, but the game was already over by then."

The United States took control quickly, with Wambach drilling a penalty kick into the upper-right corner of the net just 3 minutes in, after goalkeeper Erin McLeod fouled Carli Lloyd in the penalty area. "The win didn't come easy," Wambach said, "They're a hard, tough team. You never expect to win a game like this 6-2."

Canada's Rhian Wilkinson tied the game up just eight minutes later. A goal kick was won in the midfield by Christine Sinclair, who sent a header behind the U.S. defense. The U.S defender couldn’t recover the ball and Rhian Wilkinson used her speed to get behind the defender to slide and slot her shot into the lower left corner from 12 yards out.

Unfortunately, two minutes later, Tarpley redirected a nice cross from the right flank by Heather Mitts to put the United States back in front for good. The United States built up a 4-1 lead before halftime. Lori Chalupny scored in the 28th minute, and Lilly connected off a nice feed from Lloyd 7 minutes later.

In the second half, Canada cut the deficit to two at 50 minutes, when captain Christine Sinclair scored her 65th international goal. But, Wambach's second goal, a header from Lilly's free kick, gave the Americans a 5-2 advantage 15 minutes later. Heather O'Reilly tacked on another goal in the 73rd minute.

Canadian goalkeeper Erin McLeod said "I could think of a million things, but there are no excuses. A big part of our game is to win the physical battles, and we didn't win them tonight." Meanwhile, Lilly said "It was a tight game; they scored two goals, but we kept finishing and that was the difference. Canada is a great team; they're a World Cup team; they're a destructive team and you saw that tonight. We finished some great goals tonight and that's a credit to our finishing.

The Canadians did start to dominate the play in the early part of the second half and Sinclair nearly scored again. Pellerud noted that "In the second half, we played more like ourselves, but we are still not quite right. We had a wonderfully lively start and scored early. However, their strong and skillful side scored six times, four times on set plays,' says Pellerud. 'The set plays were also our weakness in the China series, so we need this to became a strength, not a weakness at the World Cup."

All things considered, Canada had good reason to be out of step for this game. It was just their third full international match of the season since they have spent the early part of the year working on fitness. Most of the players have also only had a couple of days to rest from the China series before flying out to Texas. "our camps have made fitness a priority so far, so now we need to play more soccer and partake in more scrimmages," says Pellerud. "We need to play more international soccer matches."

So far this year, 10th-ranked Canada is 0-3, having dropped all of its games, with the other two losses coming against China on May 3 and 6. Despite these recent losses, Pellerud isn't concerned about his team heading into this Fall's FIFA Women's World Cup in China. "To be 0 and three doesn't concern me. The Women's World Cup is five months away and there is still a lot of games to be played," Pellerud said. "We're polishing our team's tactics, and we need to come back into soccer shape - that's the biggest problem and we need to play more soccer and more games." Canada will have a chance to do this when it travels to New Zealand for two friendlies on June 3 and 6.

LINEUPS

CANADA: Erin McLeon, Katie Thorlakson (Kristina Kiss 72), Randee Hermus, Martina Franko, Brittany Timko, Amy Walsh, Andrea Neil (Kara Lang 46), Diana Matheson (Sophie Schmidt 79), Candace Chapman, Christine Sinclair, Rhian Wilkinson (Jodi-Ann Robinson 85).

UNITED STATES: Hope Solo, Heather Mitts (Stephanie Lopez 27), Cat Whitehill, Kate Markgraf (Marian Dalmy 53), Christie Rampone, Shannon Boxx, Lori Chalupny (Aly Wagner 72), Carli Lloyd (Leslie Osborne 58), Lindsay Tarpley (Heather O'Reilly 62), Kristine Lilly, Abby Wambach (Natasha Kai 82).

CAUTIONS: CAN, McLeod 3; USA, Lloyd 9; CAN, Franko 79; USA, Boxx 80; CAN, Walsh 85.

REFEREE: Sandra Serafini. REFEREE ASSISTANTS: Margaret Domka, Kim Oberle.