USA see off North Korea

2011 WOMEN'S WORLD CUP FINALS:TOP-RANKED United States beat North Korea 2-0 in their women's World Cup opener yesterday in Dresden.

Lauren Cheney completed a swift second-half move with a well-timed header and Rachel Buehler fired in with 14 minutes to go to give the team with the highest average age of players a winning start against the youngest side in the tournament.

“You play your first 45 minutes in a World Cup and after those 45 you start knocking the ball around a bit better. We did a good job,” US coach Pia Sundhage said. “It’s good to have this result because it is so much easier going forward.”

On a sun-drenched afternoon in Dresden, the Koreans were lucky not to go a goal down early in the second half when Abby Wambach and 23-year-old Cheney each saw their efforts sail just wide.

But the two players combined beautifully in the 54th minute with Wambach sailing in a cross to the far post and Cheney made amends for her previous miss with a well-placed soft header that wrong-footed the goalkeeper.

The Koreans almost struck back two minutes later with Ri Ye-gyong’s 25-metre shot rattling the crossbar, but otherwise it was one-way traffic, with the Americans cutting down on errors and pressing their rivals.

Buehler doubled their lead in the 76th minute, sliding and firing in a loose ball after it bounced off the bar. “I worked my butt off and it worked,” said Cheney.

In the earlier game yesterday, Sweden beat Colombia 1-0 in their opening match. Jessica Landstrom scored the goal in the 57th minute in Leverkusen.

Governing body Fifa yesterday confirmed Colombia goalkeeper Yineth Varon had been provisionally suspended after a positive dope test. The “out-of-competition” doping control was carried out in Leverkusen on Saturday, Fifa said, without identifying the substance.

Today in the opening games in Group D, Brazil play Australia in Moenchengladbach and 1995 champions Norway face Equatorial Guinea in Augsburg.

Fifa said defending champions Germany’s opening match – in which they defeated Canada 2-1 in front of 73,680 spectators at Berlin’s Olympiastadion – drew an average audience of 15.4 million television viewers in the host country, with a peak of 18 million toward the end.