NICE, France (AP) — Mallory Swanson scored a pair of goals just moments apart in the first half and the United States opened the Olympics with a 3-0 victory Thursday night over Zambia, giving new coach Emma Hayes a win in her first major tournament with the team.
Trinity Rodman also scored for the United States, which is looking to add a record fifth gold medal to its Olympic collection.
Zambia was hurt in the 33rd minute when Pauline Zulu was sent off with a red card and the team was limited to 10 players the rest of the way.
Hayes took over the U.S. team in late May after finishing out the season with Chelsea in the Women’s Super League. She shook things up a bit with her Olympic roster, leaving star forward Alex Morgan, a veteran of three Olympics, at home.
Hayes is charged with leading the Americans as they seek to distance themselves from the disappointment of last summer’s Women’s World Cup, when they crashed out in the round of 16.
“If you had asked me at the beginning of the game, ‘Would you be happy with a 3-nil win?’ I probably would have said no,” Hayes said. “However, after the performance and the chances created and finding the back of the net we did, I don’t want to be too hard on the girls.”
Rodman, making her Olympic debut, scored in the 17th minute. U.S. captain Lindsey Horan passed to Rodman, who deftly shot around onrushing Zambian goalkeeper Ngambo Musole.
Swanson scored twice within 70 seconds in the 24th and 25th minutes to give the Americans a 3-0 lead in the Group B match in Nice.
Swanson called it just a start.
“I think there’s little things within that game, within the play, that we need to fine-tune, that we can just keep on growing with,” Swanson said. “So I think there’s definitely those little things, and we’ll address them and fix them and keep moving forward.”
U.S. forward Sophia Smith left the game with what appeared to be an ankle injury late in the first half and was replaced by Lynn Williams.
Williams was originally an alternate on Hayes’ Olympic roster, but Catarina Macario wasn’t able to play in France because of minor knee irritation.
It was the first time the United States has faced Zambia on the international stage.
“A lot of credit to Zambia’s goalkeeper tonight, because in the first half I think we had a sequence of like six shots in a row that she saved or went off the post,” Horan said. “And sometimes that how it goes. I was really happy it wasn’t one of those days where the ball just doesn’t go in the back of the net.”
While Zambia started stars Barbra Banda and Racheal Kundananji, neither of them was able to break through.
Banda is a proven scorer, with 12 goals in 12 games this season for the Orlando Pride in the National Women’s Soccer League. At the Tokyo Games, Banda had a pair of back-to-back hat tricks in the group stage.
The United States will next face Germany on Sunday in Marseille.
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