Dutch women dominate their American counterparts

Dutch domination was the name of the game as a heavily one sided game saw the ball hardly go outside the USA half. A goal from Moes and two from Morgenstern gave Netherlands a comfortable 3-0 win, but the American defence gave a good account of themselves holding the Dutch scoreless in the 1st and 4th quarters, with multiple defensive stops against waves and waves of Dutch attacks.

Right from the start, Netherlands imposed their will on the Americans, who struggled all game to get out of their own half. With a suffocating high press, that the Americans found too difficult to play out of, the Dutch team had a total of 20 shots through the game and 41 circle penetrations, compared to no shots and 1 circle penetration from the Americans.

Each quarter followed a similar pattern as the game stayed concentrated in the American half as their defence tried to fend off the Dutch attackers. After a dominant but goalless first quarter, Netherlands finally found a breakthrough via Moes Freeke in the 18th minute after a rare breakdown by the American defence gave her a lot of space and time to receive the ball in the circle, pick her spot and bury it beyond Kelsey Bing. 

Bing had a terrific game and could have been hardly asked for more. She pulled off save after save, but the Dutch attack was relentless and found a second goal in the 25th minute through Fiona Morgenstern on a penalty corner rebound after Bing had pulled off another save. 

The second half went much the same way, with the Americans unable to play out from the back and the Dutch trying to switch wings in repeated attempts to score more goals. The third goal finally came from the stick of Morgenstern again, but it was created by a magical run into the circle by captain Matla, who provided the pass that set up the goal. 

The Dutch players will have something to work on after their set pieces were sometimes ineffective. They won a total of 9 penalty corners, and converted one of them, which also came off a rebound, after Bing had saved the initial feeble attempt.

For the Americans this was a third consecutive game of resolute defending after their 2 games against Germany last week. While they found no joy in attack, their defensive solidity in the face of non-stop attacks does provide them with positives going forward, given their 15th place world ranking compared to their opponents who are ranked 1st in the world. 

American keeper Kelsey Bing who had tremendous game in the goal speaking of positives said: “I saw a marked improvement in the second half, we changed our press and we were able to attack a little bit more and hopefully we can take that into tomorrow.”

Xan de Waard won the player of the match and asked about the final scoreline said: “It’s difficult actually when the opponent sits so deep. You have to try and score against 11 players inside the 25. So sometimes it’s hard and our last pass in the D was a bit lacking and that’s why we didn’t score many goals today.”