Mead gives England winning start in European Championship

MANCHESTER, England (AP) — Beth Mead scored the one objective of the sport as host England beat Austria 1-0 in entrance of a tournament-record crowd of 68,871 at Outdated Trafford within the ladies’s European Championship opener on Wednesday.

Mead skillfully flicked the ball over Austria goalkeeper Manuela Zinsberger within the sixteenth minute nevertheless it wanted goal-line expertise to show it had simply crossed the road earlier than being cleared.

That slim margin mirrored an in depth recreation during which England dominated possession however could not create sufficient clear probabilities to match its extra convincing pre-tournament wins over groups like Belgium, Denmark and the defending champion Netherlands.

The 16-team event kicked off a yr later than initially scheduled due to the coronavirus pandemic. It carries hopes that it’s going to additional increase the fast-growing viewers for girls’s soccer in Europe, and UEFA has mentioned greater than 500,000 tickets have been bought.

For the reason that final event in 2017, England has been on the forefront of that growth as Ladies’s Tremendous League golf equipment signed lots of the world’s greatest gamers and elevated income and TV audiences. The England nationwide crew continues to be searching for a primary main event title.

Austria was a shock semifinalist within the 2017 European Championship on its solely earlier look, when it conceded one objective in 5 video games and solely misplaced in a penalty shootout.

England goalkeeper Mary Earps stopped Austria getting some extent Wednesday when she dived at full stretch within the 78th to cease Barbara Dunst’s harmful curling shot.

England may earlier have scored extra when Ellen White headed large within the twenty sixth and Zinsberger reacted rapidly to maintain out Lauren Hemp’s effort in first-half stoppage time.

___

Extra AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

The Related Press