Germany’s women have the most powerful squad in the world according to FIFA rankings, and they surely demonstrated their might against the Ivory Coast in a 10-0 victory.
Celia Sasic scored the fastest hat trick in World Cup history with goals in the 3rd minute, 15th minute and 31st minute, while Anja Mittag also buried a hat trick.
In the first half, statistics told the story of this game, notably Germany’s 20 shots inside the penalty box. Ivory Coast had 0 shots on target.
Head coach Silvia Neid must have her team in peak physical condition because whenever Ivory Coast held possession, the National Eleven were persistently fast to close gaps in the midfield and played their opposition tight throughout this competition.
“We had judged them to be better than they were today,” Neid said. “We were very focused and concentrated heading into the match. We scored early on, and stood our ground, we outran them.”
The Ivory Coast had a couple of promising occasions, though. Binta Diakite almost had a goal but fouled German netminder Nadine Angerer, and Ange N’Guessan couldn’t bury her header into an open net.
“From this game, we have positive points we can take out - the experience,” Ivory Coast head coach Clementine Toure said. “It’s our first participation in the World Cup, and there was a great crowd here.”
For the first goal of the match, Leonie Maier sent a pass over to Sasic on the edge of the six-yard box, and Sasic’s second was a header off Lena Goessling’s cross.
In the 29th minute, Goessling was in on the assault again when she provided the assist to Mittag for a rocket attempt past goalkeeper Dominque Thiamale.
Five minutes later, Sasic buried her third and was then taken out at the half.
Simone Laudehr, Sara Dabritz, Melanie Behringer and Alexandra Popp (on a free kick) all converted as well; Germany is now tied with Norway at the top of Group B.
