Before the end of regular time, 21-year-old England women's soccer star Lauren James "paid tribute to the famous English footballer David Beckham" with her actions. But it wasn't Beck, who scored a spectacular free kick for Greece 22 years ago to take England's men's soccer team to the World Cup in South Korea and Japan, who she emulated. It was the same Beck who received red for maliciously kicking Simone at the World Cup in France. Facing Alozi, who was already on the ground, James stepped directly on the Nigerian girl's backside. After a VAR alert, the referee canceled the yellow card call and showed the red card directly to Lauren James. I don't know how the sister of the British watch did it.
After extra time in which no one scored, both teams went to penalty kicks for a decisive win. The Nigerian women's soccer team suffered a noticeable fluctuation in mentality and were penalized for all of their first two penalty kicks. After losing the first round, the England women's soccer team hit the next four penalties and eventually won the penalty shootout 4-2 to advance to the top eight in thrilling fashion.
But if there's one phrase that describes the England women's soccer team in this match, "win or lose" is perfect. Even if they do qualify, the next step for England's women's soccer team won't be easy. After a number of injuries in the run-up to the World Cup and in the group stage, rising star Lauren James is facing suspension. At the moment, England's women are nowhere near as good as they were a year ago when they won the Women's European Cup.
The hosts dominated and beat the Danish women's soccer team to advance to the last eight, a wake-up call for the Chinese women's soccer team.
Before the start of the match between the Australian women's soccer team and the Danish women's soccer team, Sydney's Australia Stadium welcomed 75,784 fans in a magnificent atmosphere. Amidst this mountain of cheering like a tsunami, hosts Australia were firmly in the driver's seat from the start. Although Australian women's soccer team legend Kerr was still unable to make her debut, the team took the lead in the 28th minute of the first half with a goal from Caitlin Foulds.
The Danish women's soccer team's survival-dependent high hanging style of play seemed useless against the physically strong but technically and cooperatively minded Australian women's soccer team. The Danish Women's soccer team's defenders were as clumsy as aircraft carriers in the face of the Aussie Women's soccer team's fierce offense. In the 70th minute of the second half, the Australian Women's soccer team scored again from Lasso.
Before the end of the match, Australia's legendary superstar and FIFA game cover character Kerr finally made an appearance, winning a loud cheer from the more than 70,000 fans in attendance. In the end, the host Australian women's soccer team beat the Scandinavian powerhouse Danish women's soccer team 2-0, matching the team's best-ever record and breaking into the top eight of the Women's Soccer Team World Cup.
I believe many Chinese women's soccer fans are also watching the knockout matches between the Australian Women's Football Association and the Danish Women's Football Association, as these two teams have a lot to do with our Chinese women's soccer team. Needless to say, Denmark Women's Football is the direct competitor of China Women's Football. The Australian Women's Football Team and us in the AFC, are our competitors in the Asian competition. In the first match of the group, the tall Danish women's soccer team made the Chinese women's soccer team suffer a lot, and eventually directly cost us the initiative to advance.
However, in this one-eighth final, the Australian women's soccer team looked more like a 2.0 evolution of the Danish women's soccer team. The players are not only physically strong, but also have good individual speed, technique and sense of teamwork. Next up, our Chinese women's soccer team will face the challenge of the Hangzhou Asian Games and Olympic qualifiers. The Australian women's soccer team is our direct competitor in Asia. Especially the Olympic qualifiers are more difficult to advance than the World Cup. If you want to advance, you have to squeeze out Japan Women's Soccer Team, Korea Women's Soccer Team and Australia Women's Soccer Team. The difficulty can be imagined.
The Australian women's soccer team easily beat the Denmark women's soccer team which is stronger than us this time, and this also gives us a wake-up call: the new pattern of Asian women's soccer competition has appeared, and the situation of China's women's soccer team will be more and more difficult. China's women's football team can only forget about the lucky win in the Asian Cup, recognize the situation, stay on the ground, and fight one battle at a time in order to maintain the glory of yesterday's roses.
