Four Before The Fourth

The Fourth of July fireworks came a little early for the U.S. WNT. Having never beaten Norway in Norway, the Americans walked out of Fredrikstad Stadium 4-0 winners after dominating most of Wednesday’s match. Tarp, Carli Lloyd, Angela Hucles, and Abby each scored a goal, while ‘Tash forced the issue with her speed all day and the backline held airtight. Although Angela’s long distance goal in the 84th wasn’t exactly a game winner—the U.S. was up 2-0 by that point—it’s certainly highlight reel worthy (check out ussoccer.com later today). Her form has been amazing recently; one might even say Wambach-esque. For Abby, “recently” constitutes her last 124 games. She’s now sitting pretty on 99 career goals and you can bet she’ll be hunting for that magic number this Saturday (11:00am ET) against Sweden, U.S. head coach Pia Sundhage’s native country.

Though she didn’t make it into the lineup against Norway, one player rapidly ascending the WNT ranks is defender Ali Krieger Check out this short article posted on the U.S. WNT Blog to hear about some of her unique soccer accomplishments this year. Looks like we’ll be seeing a lot more of Ali in the future, so might as well get an introduction now.