New Zealand have come agonisingly close to securing a hard-earned point in their FIFA U-20 Women\u2019s World Cup opener, only for Japan to snatch a 2-1 victory with a late penalty in Lodz, Poland.<\/p>\n
The Junior Football Ferns showed resilience to fight their way back into the Group D contest, with substitute Lily Brazendale levelling in the 59th minute after meeting Pia Vlok\u2019s driven ball across goal and finishing confidently from close range.<\/p>\n
But with New Zealand under sustained pressure in the closing stages, goalkeeper Brooke Neary who had been outstanding throughout was adjudged to have brought down a Japanese attacker in the 85th minute. After a lengthy review, Japan were awarded a penalty, and Miyu Matsunaga kept her composure to convert from the spot and decide the match.<\/p>\n
Japan had enjoyed the better of a goalless first half, forcing Neary into a string of important saves, before taking the lead five minutes after the restart when Matsunaga headed home.<\/p>\n
The statistics underlined Japan\u2019s attacking threat, with 29 shots, 10 on target, while New Zealand were limited to three attempts.<\/p>\n
Despite the defeat, New Zealand coach Callum Holmes found positives in a committed defensive display against one of the tournament favourites.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s a really cruel way to lose the game at the end. Now we\u2019ve just got to go again,\u201d Holmes said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe did a lot of defending. Japan are very good with the ball.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to rest and recover, and get ready for Italy, which is going to be a very tough game.\u201d<\/p>\n
The performance also represented a notable step forward from the last U-20 Women\u2019s World Cup meeting between the two nations, when Japan won 7-0 in 2024.<\/p>\n
New Zealand will look to respond in their second Group D match against The Italians on Thursday morning, who upset the USA 2-1 in their opening match.<\/p>\n
Oceania\u2019s second representative, New Caledonia, opens its campaign against China overnight in Sosnowiec.<\/p>\n
JAPAN 2 (Miyu MATSUNAGA 50\u2019 90+2\u2019)<\/p>\n
NEW ZEALAND 1 (Lily BRAZENDALE 58\u2019)<\/p>\n
(Photo Credit FIFA via Getty Images)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New Zealand have come agonisingly close to securing a hard-earned point in their FIFA U-20 Women\u2019s World Cup…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":882467,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":["post-882466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/882466","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=882466"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/882466\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/882467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=882466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=882466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=882466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}