four-star norway outlast brave thais (fifa.com) 07 jun 2015
norway began their 2015 fifa women’s world cup™ campaign in confident fashion with a 4-0 win over debutants thailand in ottawa.
isabell herlovsen netted a first-half double as norway raced to a 3-0 half-time lead while there were goals also for trine ronning and the free-running ada hegerberg.
the match was, as expected, dominated by the experienced europeans, yet it was the south-east asians that could have netted five minutes into their first-ever game. however, silawan intamee just failed to make the contact she needed from point-block range after a burst of speed down the right flank from kanjana sung-ngoen.
norway soon took a stranglehold and hegerberg pinged a towering header off the post from a perfect herlovsen ball.
veteran skipper ronning, playing in her fourth women’s world cup, broke the deadlock by curling a free-kick around the wall and inside the near post.
herlovsen soon doubled the advantage after norway short-passed their way into the penalty area and the no9 coolly slotted home low through a sea of legs for her first women’s world cup in eight years.
within four minutes herlovsen doubled her personal tally with a close-range header thanks to an inch-perfect cross from solveig gulbrandsen
the one-way traffic continued after the break and hegerberg clipped the near post with a mishit cross, before then glancing a shot just wide after ghosting in at the near post.
hegerberg got her reward midway through the half with the 19-year-old netting from close range after a run down the left flank.
thailand received a boost of sorts with a quarter of an hour remaining as goalkeeper waraporn boonsing made a smart save to block maren mjelde’s penalty awarded for handball.
the war elephants even came within inches of a goal after hitting the crossbar with a long-range speculative effort in the final minute.
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