France oust world champs

By HUXLEY LOVAI
France beat Germany 1-0 in the second quarterfinal match on Friday at the Sir John Guise Stadium.
The victory knocked out long-time rival and defending champions Germany from the competition.
Triumph was secured for France by dynamic forward and captain Delphine Cascarino in the 16th minute after a short pass from a corner allowed her to strike from the edge of the penalty box past the German keeper into the top right corner of the goal.
The game saw the best of France’s attacking prowess and pace against the disciplined and organised structure of Germany.
Indeed France used their pace down the flanks to go around the German defence, who struggled to contain forwards Cascarino, Clara Mateo and Louise Fleury.
The trio, along with midfielder Juliane Gathrat, constantly threatened the German goal, but were kept at bay by the resolute German defence and goalkeeper Carina Schlueter.
France dominated the first 20 minutes of the match, with the game being played in the German half of the field.
As the game wore on, the Germans started to find their footing, and were able to create scoring opportunities, taking on the French through forward Stefanie Sanders and midfielders Saskia Matheis and Jasmin Sehan.
Despite their efforts with a couple of shots hitting the crossbar of the French goal, the Germans were unable to find the back of the net.
This was largely due to the goalkeeping of Mylene Chavas for France, who was also named player-of-the-match.
French coach Gilles Eyquem praised the defensive effort of the team.
“We’ve worked on our defence in the training sessions, reviewing our mistakes and correcting them.
“I want to underline the mental strength of the whole team, they wanted to show that they could perform much better than they did during the group matches,” Eyquem said.