London - Arabstoday
The second matchday of the Women’s Olympic Football Tournament saw Brazil, Great Britain and USA qualify for the quarter-finals, Abby Wambach and Christine Sinclair continue their battle for goalscoring supremacy, and Japan and Sweden play out only the second goalless draw in the history of the tournament. Team GB turned on the style against the Africans in Cardiff and their champagne moment came with their second goal midway through the first half. Kelly Smith played a fantastic through ball to Kim Little, who showed great awareness to find Jill Scott with a cheeky backheel. From there, the Everton midfielder produced an accurate side-footed finish low into the net before leading her team-mates in a shimmy-shake celebration. Memorable moments Happy B-Day Kriegy! When Megan Rapinoe put USA ahead against Colombia in the 33rd minute, she reached to her sock to pull out a special message for her injured team-mate, Ali Krieger, who has recently recovered from cruciate ligament injuries. The message simply read ‘Happy B-Day Kriegy’ which she unravelled in front of the TV cameras, with Kelley O’Hara, Heather O’Reilly and Alex Morgan also sending their love across the Atlantic. Hedvig flying high That Sweden earned a 0-0 draw with Japan in Coventry was largely due to an excellent display from Hedvig Lindahl, who produced some world-class saves to deny the world champions. It was a form of redemption for the Sweden No1, whose mistake allowed Japan to take a 2-1 lead in the semi-final of the FIFA Women’s World Cup™ last year from which the Scandinavians never recovered. See-saw battle Her brace against South Africa saw Christine Sinclair go level with Abby Wambach on 139 international goals, but Wambach’s strike in Glasgow edged the USA forward ahead once again. Not only that, but the strike put her ahead of her country’s striking legends Mia Hamm and Tiffeny Milbrett in terms of goals scored in the Women’s Olympic Football Tournament. Super sub There was little in the way of goalmouth incident in Glasgow during the France-Korea DPR game until the introduction of Elodie Thomis in the 61st minute. Her pacy, direct style caused the Koreans all kinds of problems: scoring one and providing an assist for another in the 69th and 70th minutes respectively. With time ticking away she also executed a perfect cross for Camille Catala to complete the 5-0 rout. The stat 8 – Brazil goalkeeper Andreia wrote her name into the history books with eight clean sheets in the Women’s Olympic Football Tournament, although she was given a relatively straightforward afternoon as the Football Ferns only registered one shot on target during the entire 90 minutes. The quote \"It\'s been indescribable. I mean, playing against players like Christine Sinclair. We dream of that. Coming from Africa, we never thought we\'d be where we are today. Just being here, this whole experience, and playing against players who play in professional leagues. We don\'t have a lot of that at home - actually, we don\'t have any. We come from tiny little development teams at home to playing against world-class people. So we\'ve learnt a lot. It\'s been very exciting and an honour,\" Kylie Louw, South Africa midfielder. From fifa