The United States took advantage of the sunshine at BC Place in Vancouver with 4 goals in the first 16 minutes to break a 16-year drought to win the 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup 5-2 over Japan.
Carli Lloyd scored a hat trick, scoring in the 3rd, 5th, and 16th minute. Lloyd's last goal was about 54 yards away; felt more like a Paul McCallum field goal given we were in BC Place.
The U.S. team scored on its first 2 shots.
Lauren Holiday scored the other early goal for the U.S. and Tobin Heath added a second-half goal.
2015 Women's World Cup notebook: Canada eliminated in quarterfinals
5 of the 7 goals were scored in the sun. This included Japan's second-half goal, though this was a case where Japan "scored" on a deflection from the other team.
The sun lasted a bit longer since the game started at 4 pm Pacific time, ½ hour earlier than the other recent starts at BC Place.
Eric Wynalda of Fox pointed out that the U.S. was fortunate to win the coin flip to get to shoot into the sun in the first half.
The speed of the U.S. team and great set plays with Carli Lloyd played their roles. But that sun proved to be rather bothersome in the Women's World Cup in Vancouver.
Canada faces England in Women's World Cup quarterfinals
The U.S. played stellar defense throughout the entire Women's World Cup. The team compiled a scoreless streak of 540 minutes, tying the mark within a single tournament. The team gave up a goal in the first game against Australia and 2 against Japan; in between, the U.S. posted 5 straight shutouts.
Germany went 679 scoreless minutes from 2003-11 for the all-time record.
Canada to play Switzerland in 2015 Women's World Cup Round of 16
U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden was part of a very pro-U.S. crowd at BC Place in Vancouver. The crowd was and sounded huge inside BC Place, though Japan had its share of fans. The Asian influence in Vancouver is mostly Chinese in origin, but Japan's influence has an impact.
Downtown Vancouver felt "American" in terms of the colours of red, white and blue as well as the large number of fans in the downtown area.
2015 Women's World Cup notebook: Canada on the world stage
Defender Kadeisha Buchanan won the Best Young Player award for the tournament at 19 years old. Buchanan was one of the top Canadian defenders.
2015 World Cup notebook: Canada wants win to clinch Group A
The gold medal game drew 53,341 at BC Place. This was the largest crowd to see the U.S. team in the Women's World Cup. This was, however, the 3rd largest crowd of the tournament. The Canada-England game drew 54,027, the new attendance record for any Canadian national team. The crowd of 53,855 in Vancouver saw Canada edge out Switzerland.
When the U.S. edged out Germany, the crowd was 51,176 in Montréal.
Canada's 2015 Women's World Cup legacy: artificial turf
The U.S. team scored as many goals in the first half of the gold medal match as Canada did in the entire Women's World Cup tournament.
Canada hosts 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup soccer
Fara Williams scored on a penalty kick in the 108th minute gave England the bronze medal over Germany 1-0. England had its best Women's World Cup ever. The country obviously came quite close to advancing to the gold medal game but for Laura Bassett's own goal in the 92nd minute in the semifinal.
CanadianCrossing.com soccer coverage
We complimented the weather that Vancouver had for the tournament. You likely noticed the haze outside the outdoor studio on Sunday. The haze is actually from wildfires from northern British Columbia. Wildfires have been dominant in western Canada this summer because those provinces haven't had the rain like eastern Canada has had.
map credit: Google
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