Abby Wambach with 4 goals on the night, leads USA to 7th Championship
By Jeff Lageson
USA 6 Costa Rica 0 Chester, PA October 26, 2014
The USWNT finished off the CONCACAF Women’s Championship with an emphatic 6-0 victory over Costa Rica Sunday evening. Scoring just four minutes in and following the first goal up with a second within another fifteen minutes put this game away early. By half time it was four nil and very much over. With kick off basically 48 hours after Costa Rica had qualified for its first ever World Cup, it is not surprising that they had virtually nothing left for a final. The USA was playing at home and still had the lingering sting of complicated qualifying four years ago to purge from its system and the lop sided result accurately reflects on the game in Chester.
Abby Wambaugh scored four times on the night, including a first half hat trick. Hope Solo kept another clean sheet, ensuring that in 450 minutes the USA gave up nothing on the defensive end. Any Costa Rican attempts down the flank were shut down by the USA defenders Ali Krieger and company. Carli Lloyd and Megan Rapinoe were as effective in the offensive third as usual, and when Coach Jill Ellis made her one big swoop of substitutions in the second half it meant Costa Rica’s defense had to deal with the fresh legs of Tobin Heath and Sydney Leroux when already down four nil. The USA defended by continuing to attack.
The CONCACAF Women’s Championship was played without 2015 World Cup hosts Canada as a result of it pulling double duty as World Cup Qualifying. Without Canada, the USA’s biggest real threat was a let down. Trinidad played with emotion and a goalkeeper having an excellent game to make the opener 1-0, but that was still a game the US really controlled. There were no let downs. The goals started coming in the second game and the USA ended the tourney outscoring their opponents 21-0 in five matches. It was not merely a lack of a let down, it was the USA putting the foot on the gas and quietly and ruthlessly being efficient with 20 goals in the four games after the 1-0 opener.
The big question now is can this team be the first team since the 1999 team to grab a World Cup trophy? Playing in a tournament that did not have the type of opposition a team like Canada can provide should not diminish the dominance of this performance. There is depth on all three lines and at goalkeeper. The team withstood an injury to a dynamic player in Alex Morgan and proceeded to score more goals as the tournament went on. There was no let down in the semifinal against Mexico to make qualification unnecessarily complicated. Coach Ellis mixed up her line ups, gave out minutes, and only played Lloyd for all 450 minutes. Scoring came from nine players in five games. This is a very deep team.
