Game report

The U.S. scored in the 21st minute when Wallis headed in a cross by Lohman, from seven yards. The USA continued to drive forward creating good chances for Wagner, Reddick and Lohman, and Wallis put the USA up 2-0 two minutes into the second half. Holl was brilliant for Germany, and after Wallis had scored German team came at the USA. Solo made several world-class and one of those was against Pohlers who broke free to dribble one-on-one at Solo, but she pushed the ball away with her left hand. A partially screened Solo could not stop Muller's sizzler from 25 yards three minutes later as Germany pulled a goal back.   After pulling within one, Germany pounded away for another and took the game to the Americans for about 10 minutes, coming close to an equalizer on several occasions. Solo made another big save in the 57th minute, pushing another long-range drive around the left post that would have tied the match.

The U.S. team weathered a ten minute storm by Germany and then settled down and took back control of the match for the final 30 minutes. Th insurance goal came in the 63rd minute when Reddick at the far post re-directed a shot by Welsh in from four yards.

Post game quotes

U.S. Head Coach Jerry Smith

It's not easy to win a championship and even harder to defend one. We had two goals coming into this tournament, one was to defend the championship and two was to put on a dominating performance. In the final today, against a great Germany team, we did dominate and clearly deserved the victory. Joanna's leadership, consistency and offensive talents were a key for us the entire tournament. Her goal in the first game against Finland was obviously crucial in making the final.

The experience in this championship will be great for our U-21 players to draw from if they graduate to the full team to represent the U.S. in future World Cup and Olympic games.

Marcia Wallis (two goals in Final)

We knew Germany was an established, talented team and had come through a tough bracket to get the final, but Jerry told us that we were the better team and if we played our best game we would win. As forwards, our job is to score and we had been coming close all tournament, but I hadn't been able to find the net. You just have to keep believing your next shot is going to go in and I got two good chances in this game.

Other

Marcia Wallis (Stanford/Los Gatos, Calif.) scored two goals.

Cat Reddick (UNC/Birmingham, Ala.) added a third.

It was the fifth time in the last six years that the U.S. U-21s have won the Nordic Cup.          

Ten of the U.S. players who played in the championship game have earned caps with the full U.S. National Team, an indication of the successful blending of young talent with the U.S. veterans by U.S. Head Coach April Heinrichs.        

The U.S. players return home for a brief rest before starting their pre-season training camps with their respective college teams in mid-August.