Spain and Japan move into last eight at Women's World Cup
Spain and Japan advanced to the quarter-finals at the Women's World Cup on Saturday following wins over Switzerland and Norway respectively.
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Aitana Bonmati scored twice in Spain's 5-1 demolition of the Swiss who had reached the last-16 without conceding a goal during their progress through Group A.
That statistic changed within five minutes at Eden Park in Auckland. Switzerland goalkeeper Gaelle Thalmann managed to save Alba Redonda's shot but Bonmati rammed home the rebound.
The opening was perfect response to Spain's 4-0 loss to Japan in their last game of Group C.
Even after Laia Codina put through her own net to bring the sides level, Spain remained on the front foot and continued to dominate possession.
Redondo restored the advantage after 17 minutes and Bonmati bagged her brace in the 36th minute.
Codina atoned for her sins on the stroke of half-time when she scored Spain's fourth. Jennifer Hermoso added the gloss midway through the second half.
"What I liked the most about the team was our competitiveness – how we went into the duels and how we won the duels," said Spain boss Jorge Vilda.
"The team approached the game well. We were very offensive and our football prevailed."
The Switzerland striker Ramona Bachman conceded her side had been outwitted.
"It was just difficult," said the Paris Saint-Germain player. "You could see that Spain was a class better. In the first 20-25 minutes we had a few good attacks, but we weren’t clever playing them through to the end.
"We wanted to be dangerous on the counter-attack, which worked out a few times in the first half, but not so much in the second."
Debut
In their first quarter-final appearance at the World Cup, Spain will take on either the Netherlands on South Africa who play on Sunday in Sydney.
Japan steamed into the knockout stages on the back of three wins in which their defence had not been breached while their forwards racked up 11 goals.
Futoshi Ikeda's side were 1-0 up within 11 minutes against Norway in Wellington courtesy of Ingrid Engen's own goal.
But Norway were level midway through the first period.
Vilde Risa raced down the right wing, crossed the ball into the penalty area where Guro Reiten rose to head past the Japan goalkeeper Ayaka Yamashita.
Risa Shimizu gave Japan the lead five minutes after the restart and Norway were picked off on the counter-attack nine minutes from time. Hinata Miyazawa raced onto Aoba Fujino's defence-splitting pass to guide the ball past Norway goalkeeper Aurora Mikalsen for her fifth goal of the tournament.
Job done for #JPN! 😎@JFA_Nadeshiko | #FIFAWWC
— FIFA Women's World Cup (@FIFAWWC) August 5, 2023
Japan, who fell in the last-16 during the 2019 tournament in France, will take on the winner of Sunday's match between the defending champions United States and Sweden.
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