Olympic champion United States of America and European champion Spain surged into the Tokyo 2020 women's semifinals at the Tatsumi Water Polo Centre on Tuesday afternoon. USA defeated Canada 16-5 in the North-American face-off while Spain downed Asian qualifier China 11-7. Canada and China now go to the classification round 5-8.
United States of America is another step closer to retaining its Olympic crown, winning its quarterfinal 16-5 against neighbour Canada.
We have to go back to 2004 when Canada was last in the Olympic Games to have Canada in front, winning that match 6-5 in group play. Italy beat Greece in the Olympic final that year and USA beat Australia for bronze.
These two teams play each other a lot during the year and know each other’s game plans and playing styles. It was a case of which team would come to play today and USA certainly did that in the all-important opening periods. At 5-0 and 7-1 by quarter time, USA was all about defending its title. Canada looked shell-shocked and only came to life midway through the second quarter and then decided to stop USA in its tracks in the third quarter. The fourth period was a non-starter as, at 11-4, the match was over as a contest.
USA suffered a 10-9 defeat to Hungary in day-three action and bounced back to hammer Russian Olympic Committee 18-5 on Sunday. That impetus was carried through to today’s quarterfinal.
Maddie Musselman opened from the penalty line, added the third on extra and the match was soon five up for USA. Shae La Roche punctuated the first-quarter scoring for Canada and then USA captain Maggie Steffens went where no woman has gone before — scoring 50 Olympic goals. She did it from the deep left on extra-man attack and the occasion slipped by unnoticed. She had broken Italian Tania di Mario’s record on Sunday and now has the mark at 52 following a penalty goal in the first and another strike from the deep left in the fourth.
Makenzie Fischer and Alys Williams netted their second goals in the second period while Emma Wright and La Roche brought the score to 11-3 at the long break.
Canada was back in the match, especially in the third period where it held USA scoreless in a most-usual goal-free eight minutes.
Amanda Longan made her long-awaited Olympic debut in the water, taking over from the world’s best goalkeeper, Ashleigh Johnson — who had made 14 saves — for the final period and made three saves while letting two slip through to Crevier and Hayley McKelvey. For USA, Steffens, Stephanie Haralabidis, Makenzie Fischer and Williams for their third goals and centre forward Aria Fischer with a second, took it to a winning score of 16-5.
Canada has just the one win at Tokyo 2020 over South Africa and will now head to the play-offs for classifications 5-8.
Match 24, 14:00, CANADA 5 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 16
Quarterfinal
Quarters: 1-7, 2-4, 0-0, 2-5
Referees: Asumi Tsuzaki (JPN), Georgios Stavridis (GRE).
Shots: CAN: 5/34. USA: 16/30.
Extra Man: CAN: 3/6. USA: 5/8.
Pens: USA: 2/2.
FLASH QUOTES
Adam Krikorian (USA) — Head Coach
"It’s always great when you start out like that (7-1) but you certainly can't count on it. That got us feeling pretty confident and settled us into the game. I’m not proud of the way we played the third quarter. I think we could have played the third quarter much better. I thought we just let up a little bit. There's a bigger goal here. I know we want to win, but we just want to play the right way, and I just felt like we got away from that in the third and I'm sure they're fine. It's just a frustrated coach talking."
Maggie Steffens (USA) — Captain and First Woman to Score 50 Olympic Goals
"Defence is what this game is all about. I said this the other day when we played Hungary — some days you're going to score and some days you're not. But one thing you can control is your defensive effort, your defensive focus and the teamwork it takes to be able to get stops on defence. Canada is a really, really good team. They have a lot of threats in the centre and on the outside, so for us to be able to kind of shut them down early gave us a bit of that freedom on the offensive side."
David Paradelo (CAN) — Head Coach
"Awful start for us. We couldn't pick up the pace on our defence and we would have hoped to do better on that today. It was the case for the second half, but everything was already played in the first half. When they're on, they're on (USA). They're quick, they execute fast, so we have got to be as quick as them, as fast as them. Today that wasn't the case.”
Monika Eggens (CAN) — Captain
"Unfortunately we didn't get off to the best start. We hoped to be in it right from the get-go. It didn't go our way and we knew we were facing a really tough competition. Next time we know what we need to do.”
QUARTERFINAL: SPAIN-CHINA — 11-7
European champion Spain proved too strong for China in the second quarterfinal, winning 11-7, even though it was kept scoreless in the final quarter.
Spain entered the cut-throat quarterfinal with just the one loss — 14-13 to Netherlands — while China started its campaign with two losses — 18-17 to Russian Olympic Committee and 12-7 to United States of America.
Spain made the running early and its defensive screen prove tough to penetrate for China.
“The quarterfinal game is hard and difficult. I am satisfied as my team did a good job on defence and we made a big margin in the score, which made it easier to finish the game.”
The match was largely decided in the opening quarter with the three-goal margin being lifted to four at halftime and then six in the third quarter for 11-5. This was where China took control and the nearly 14 minutes available to it to make the comeback, seemed a possibility.
However, China could only make one score in the third, from the penalty line and another, that required a VAR decision in the final period for the 11-7 loss.
That VAR decision was because of a Guannan Niu shot that Laura Ester took in the stomach in the left corner of the goal. It appeared to stop short, but on a recheck, the ball was 100 per cent across the line. It came at 7:10 and both defences denied the other team — a long period indeed for a match of this quality to go without ticking over the scoreboard.
Chinese head coach Petar Porobic, who has shaped the team into a stronger unit than ever before, was not happy with the lack of confidence shown by his players. That lack was evident in the power of some shots.
Spain, on the other hand, was brimming with confidence and Judith Forca, who scored four goals to give her 13 for Tokyo 2020 and 20 Olympic goals in her career, put her shooting down to being the right person in the right position and receiving the ball according to do what she does best. Her first came at 6-3 with a pinpoint shot into the top let from the top; a shot straight over the head of the goalkeeper on extra, also from the top position; a rifle shot from seven metres and a regular score on extra. He last three were consecutive for Spain.
Bea Ortiz maintains her second-ranked scoring title here with two more goals for 16.
Niu scored twice for China and Zewen Deng converted the only penalty of the match. China now goes to the classification round 5-8.
Match 21, 15:30, SPAIN 11 CHINA 7
Quarterfinal
Quarters: 5-2, 4-3, 2-1, 0-1
Referees: Sebastien Dervieux (FRA), Michael Goldenberg (USA).
Shots: ESP: 11/30. CHN: 7/25.
Extra Man: ESP: 6/12. CHN: 2/8.
Pens: CHN: 1/1.
FLASH QUOTES
Judith Forca (ESP — Four Goals
“It wasn’t an easy result and we had to keep up the motivation. It has been definitely the key point to winning the match.” On her being able to score four goals: “I believe we have different athletes in different positions. It is really important to have all the right players in the right positions.”
Roser Tarrago (ESP) — Goal Scorer
"I think the key to winning was the rhythm of our game. We went really fast all the time and really hard all the time. We knew that if we did this, and if we played organised and with discipline, we would be fine and be able to beat them. We're ready for everything (semifinals). We came here to win gold, we came here to fight for it, and we’re ready to beat anyone who is in our way.”
Petar Porobic (CHN) — Head Coach
“Today we played without confidence. The important reason was we didn’t want something more. The last period and in the second we attacked and didn’t use the chances today and didn’t shoot. There were no goals, like normally. It’s necessary to play with more confidence.”
Xiaohan Mei (CHN) — Captain
"In the beginning I felt a lot of our players found the match very overwhelming as a lot of them are playing at their first Olympic Games. It took us a while to settle, so it was hard to build any momentum, but we got much better as the match went on. We knew it was going to be a very tough match as Spain have been playing really well. Although we lost, I’m happy we gave it our all and I think we did the best we could.”