Game

Chevrolet Woman of the Match Joy Fawcett

Under the leadership of the two most consistent top quality veterans of the U.S. National Team , Joy Fawcett and Kristine Lilly, the new younger generation of talented players were able to shine at this tournament. National team regulars for more than fifteen years Fawcett and Lilly have been an example of bringing a focused, high level performance to every game.

An example of the talent of the new generation was Lindsey Tarpley's scoring performance at the full international level. She was captain of the U.S. 2002 Under-19 World Championship Team.

The USA dominated this match with Canada.

Post Game quotes

U.S. National Team Head Coach April Heinrichs

The thing I'm most pleased about is that we got better every game. The American teams want to go forward, we attack aggressively and sometimes we lack patience. During the course of this tournament, we showed great patience in picking and choosing the point of attack and as a result we got behind Canada upwards of 20 times tonight. If you can convert that statistic to chances on goal, you're going to win games consistently.

Amy LePeilbet's performance was outstanding. She was very strong in the air, won almost every ball and has great recovery speed. The young players stepped into a pressure environment in some of their first appearances for the National Team and positively impacted our performance. Tarpley's three goals was a great performance for a young player She showed she could contribute with her passing as well.

One of our team goals was to have three shutouts and it's a real tribute to the six defenders and two goalkeepers we played. They were very focused on limiting shots on goal, not giving up goals at crucial moments and staying concentrated, focused and compact in the back. If you want to win games consistently, you have to focus on shutouts.

Joy was once again remarkably consistent from the first five minutes of a game to the last five minutes and from the first game to the third game. You don't toss aside good players just because of their age. You look at veteran players like Joy and see that she is focused, performing at a high level and giving us great leadership. The rest of the teams in the world would be lucky to have a player of her experience, sophistication and speed at the back.

If you are going to prepare for Olympic qualifying in such a short time, there is no better way than 13 days of training and 12 days in China with games against three of the best teams in the world.

Lindsey Tarpley

The tournament was just a lot of fun. To play these three teams was a great learning experience for all the young players. The veterans have been great in helping us get adjusted to this level and it gives us confidence to know that we can help the team win in a tournament like this.