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Abbie Parr
Norway’s players celebrate their big World Cup win over the Philippines at Eden Park.
At Eden Park, Auckland: Norway 6 (Sophie Roman Haug 6’, 17’, 95’, Caroline Graham Hansen 31’, Alicia Barker (OG) 48’, Guro Reiten 53’) Philippines 0. HT: 3-0
Group A points (games played): Switzerland 5 (3), Norway 4 (3), New Zealand 4 (3) Philippines 3 (3).
All it took was a bit of infighting and an injury crisis for Norway to wake up from their FIFA Women’s World Cup slumber and advance through to the knockout stage, with Sophie Roman Haug scoring a hat-trick.
The pre-tournament favourites to top Group A, Norway were in danger of making an embarrassingly early exit, but when they needed it most their key players stood up and produced one of the most impressive performances of this World Cup so far to demolish the Philippines 6-0.
Norway went into this game knowing they had to win big, or by a small margin and hope Switzerland were victorious over New Zealand in Dunedin to progress. They went for the former option.
Buda Mendes/Getty Images
Sophie Roman Haug bagged a hat-trick for Norway to help her team reach the knockout stage.
For those in New Zealand following this World Cup, there was more interest in what was happening 1400km down south as Switzerland played the Football Ferns, but globally this match was of equal importance, especially for most of the 34,697 spectators in attendance that turned Eden Park into a mini Manila.
Norway’s main issue up until Sunday night had been scoring goals as they failed to find the back of the net in their previous two games and they were again having to play without star striker Ada Hegerberg.
However, as the Philippines had only scored one goal in their previous 180 minutes of football, they could hardly be described as prolific either.
Both teams went out with a mentality that they needed to score and it wasn’t worth playing for a 0-0 draw. That meant from the beginning we got thrilling attacking football with the ball going from end to end and defences stretched.
Not surprisingly with this sort of play it didn’t take long for someone to score and in the sixth minute Roman Haug got on the end of a long ball floated in from outside the box and her volley flashed across the goal to beat the Philippines keeper, Olivia McDaniel.
Ten minutes later Norway had their second, with Vilde Boe Risa sending another ball to Roman Haug at the far post and this time she headed past McDaniel.
That second strike knocked the stuffing out of the Philippines, who were getting overrun in midfield and their defence was in a constant state of panic.
Little wonder then that in the 31st minute Caroline Graham Hansen scored a screamer of a goal with a shot from outside the box. It was a poignant moment for Graham Hansen, who had lashed out at her coach Hege Riise for being dropped to the bench for the game against Switzerland. So point proved.
Within eight minutes of the second half, the Philippines’ Alicia Barker scored an own goal attempting to clear a cross and Guro Reiten slotted home a penalty, taking the score up to 5-0.
Later the Philippines’ Sophia Harrison was shown a red card for a dangerous tackle on Thea Bjelde, which summed up her team’s frustrations as their World Cup campaign came to an end.
Roman Haug’s third goal came five minutes into stoppage time. So for Norway now a clash on Saturday against either Japan or Spain awaits.
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