U.S. WNT Qualify for Women’s World Cup with Win Over Italy

#9-Heather O’Reilly, #17-Abby Wambach and #10-Carli Lloyd attempt to block a free kick taken by Italy's Elisa Camporese. All photos by Jeremy Olson - www.digitalgopher.net.

The U.S. Women’s National Team defeated Italy on Saturday 1-0 in Bridgeview, Ill. It was the Americans’ home game of a home and away playoff series to qualify for next summer’s Women’s World Cup. The USA had defeated Italy in the first leg, 1-0, in Padova, Italy on Nov. 20th.

With a 2-0 aggregate tally the US redeemed themselves from an embarrassing 2-1 loss to Mexico in the CONCACAF qualifying tournament on November 5th.

The lone goal of the game came from Amy Rodriguez in the 40th minute of play. Megan Rapinoe created the  opportunity for Rodriguez with some excellent one-on-one dribbling down the left flank.  She cut inside, faked her shot, and cut down field again before unleashing a shot that Italian goalkeeper Ana Maria Picarelli couldn’t handle. She spilled the ball back out in front of the goal box where Rodriguez swooped on the ball and swiped it past the defender and Picarelli for the goal.

The U.S. was not able to put another ball in the back of the net for the 9,508 fans at Toyota Park but did keep the game interesting as they dominated the second half.

The game ended with 17 U.S. shots to Italy’s  5 and a 9 to 3 shots on goal advantage. Picarelli had to come up with 8 saves while U.S. keeper Nicole Barnhart was only forced into 3 saves.

The U.S. WNT have now qualified for its 6th consecutive Women’s World Cup. With the USA’s qualification, the 16-team field for the 2011 FIFA Women’s World Cup is now set. The qualifiers are: host Germany, Korea DPR, Japan and Australia from Asia and Sweden, Norway, France and England from Europe, New Zealand from Oceania, the USA, Canada and Mexico from CONCACAF, Nigeria and Equatorial Guinea from Africa and Brazil and Colombia from South America.

The USA will now await the 2011 FIFA Women’s World Cup Final Draw which will take place on Monday, Nov. 29 in Frankfurt, Germany to find out its first round opponents in what will be the sixth Women’s World Cup tournament. The United States will be one of four seeded teams and will head Group C. Host Germany will be in Group A, Japan was seeded into Group B and Brazil will top Group D. The three teams aside from Germany earned their seeds as the highest ranked countries for their Confederations in the latest FIFA Women’s World Rankings.

The 2011 FIFA Women’s World Cup will take place from June 26-July 17 in nine venues across Germany: Berlin, Frankfurt, Mönchengladbach, Sinsheim, Wolfsburg, Augsburg, Bochum, Dresden and Leverkusen.

Amy Rodriguez pokes the ball between Italian defenders #8-Laura Neboli and #7-Giulia Domenichetti for the lone goal of the game. Photo by Jeremy Olson -www.digitalgopher.net

For a slide show of game photos taken by Jeremy Olson go here.

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