The USA will play in their fourth Women’s World Cup final after beating two-time winners Germany at the Olympic Stadium in Montreal.
Germany striker Celia Sasic missed a penalty on 58 minutes, but USA captain Carli Lloyd kept her head to score from the spot 10 minutes later.
Substitute Kelley O’Hara booked the USA’s place in the final six minutes from time with a close-range volley.
The winners will play England or Japan in Vancouver at 00:00 BST on Monday.
It was a hard-fought semi-final encounter played out in front of a partisan crowd of more than 50,000, but English-born coach Jill Ellis’s USA side took their chances to end Germany’s World Cup dreams.
Olympic champions USA came into the match boasting the meanest defence of the tournament; in five games only Australia had beaten goalkeeper Hope Solo and that was in their opening match.
Germany, in contrast, came into the game as the highest scorers, but Solo’s goal withstood Silvia Neid’s European champions – even when they were handed a penalty shortly after the start of the second half.
The tournament’s leading scorer Sasic looked on course to add to her tally of six goals after Julie Johnston pulled down Alexandra Popp in the box just as the forward bore down on Solo’s goal early in the second period.
Former Leeds forward Lucy Ward on BBC Two |
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“It was always going to be a tight game. Germany started better and you thought they’d win. But you look at how Jill Ellis managed the game for USA. In central midfield, they played so well. In the end they were the better team and deserved to go through. Germany will rue that missed penalty.” |
But Sasic struck the ball wide of the post and was left to rue her mistake less than 10 minutes later when the USA were awarded a spot kick of their own.
This time, Annike Krahn was judged to have blocked Alex Morgan inside the edge of the area and USA skipper Lloyd, who scored the winning goal for her country in the quarter-final against China, confidently struck her penalty beyond Nadine Angerer.
Defender O’Hara made sure USA would reach their second successive World Cup final when she blasted a neat cross from Lloyd beyond the German captain in a frantic finish between the world’s top two sides.
The USA had edged the opening exchanges, Johnston meeting a well-taken Megan Rapinoe corner with force, but Angerer pulled off a point-blank save with her feet to keep the defender’s header out.
Popp forced Solo to tip her cross-cum-shot over the bar moments later but Angerer was by far the busier keeper as the USA racked up five corners in half an hour.
Morgan wasted two gilt-edged chances to put the Americans ahead, her first directed straight at Angerer after deftly collecting a defence-splitting through ball from her Portland Thorns team-mate Tobin Heath.
The striker showed delightful skill just before the break too, to tip the ball beyond experienced Germany defender Krahn on the edge of her box, but her lofted shot floated harmlessly over the bar.
Yet Morgan did play a key role in the victory, the foul on her by Krahn leading to the penalty that finally broke German resistance.
