Peace Queen Cup

The U.S. women opened the South Korean tournament in good form with a 2-1 win over Australia. The write-up on the US Soccer Web site US Soccer Web site says, "The U.S. back line of right back Heather Mitts, center backs Christie Rampone and Kate Markgraf, and left back Lori Chalupny was superb, limiting the Matildas to just two shots on goal for the match." The U.S. made no defensive player changes in the game, based on what I can tell from the game summary, which meant Stephanie Cox did not play. Neither did other defender Rachel Buehler.

A bigger defensive test comes tomorrow in the team's first rematch with Brazil since its disheartening loss 4-0 in the 2007 women's World Cup.

It won't be much of a match because Marta, Cristiane, Daniela and Elaine are not there due to club commitments in Sweden. That's their top 3 forwards and their best defender.

From the ESPN crawl during Italy-France, it was US 1, Brazil 0 with Amy Rodriguez getting the goal.

Stephanie played the 2nd half and she looked very comfortable against Brazil. Pandoratv is showing these games on-line if anyone cares.
http://www.pandora.tv/[/url]

http://www.ussoccer.com/articles/viewArticle.jsp_6881283.html[url=http://www.pandora.tv/]

USA 2-0 over Italy. They won the group and play Canada in the final on Saturday. Wambach in the 41st (from Stephanie) and 51st. Stephanie played all 90 today.

Italy's GK was Anna Picarelli, who I think played at Pepperdine.

Yep (about Anna) and her bro Mario walked-on at UP too.