Weekend Round Up

It was a busy weekend in women’s football.  WSL 1 had a break due to the FA cup games being played but WSL 2 was busy with Doncaster Belles starting off the weekend with a 5-2 win over Reading at the Keepmoat Stadium.  

There were 4 games on Saturday with wins for Sunderland, Watford and Yeovil Town along with a 2-2 draw between the Lionesses and Bees. 

It was also the quarter finals of the FA Women’s Cup.  The away teams progressed through to the Semi Finals.  Notts County beat Portsmouth 2-0, the only non-WSL team that was left in the competition while Everton put out city rivals Liverpool and Chelsea beat newcomers Manchester City. 

Birmingham and Arsenal have yet to play their match as Birmingham were in Tyreso on Saturday for the second leg of the UEFA Champions League Semi Final.  The Blues played well and although Brazilian star Marta missed a penalty, Tyreso managed to win 3-0. 

Wolfsburg beat Potsdam 4-1 in the other Semi Final which leads to a Tyreso and Wolfsburg final next month in Lisbon.

 Weekend Results

Doncaster Rovers Belles	5	Reading	2
Aston Villa	0	Sunderland	3
Durham	1	Watford	2
Milwall Lionesses	2	London Bees	2
Oxford United	0	Yeovil Town	1

FA Cup

Portsmouth	0	Notts County	2
Liverpool	0	Everton	2
Manchester City	1	Chelsea	3

Goals Galore

It was a goal madness Sunday in The SWPL with a sensational 50 goals scored in 6 matches.  Spartans were scoring for fun in an impressive 16-0 win over Forfar Farmington.  Inverness and Buchan were both on the receiving end of 10-0 thrashing by Glasgow City and Celtic respectively.

Second in the league Rangers Ladies took all 3 points in a 3-0 home win against Hibernian and Aberdeen beat Hamilton 3-2 while the only draw of the weekend was between Hutchison Vale and Queens Park in a thrilling 3-3 draw.  

Northern Ireland 0 Sweden 4

Shamrock Park was the venue for Northern Ireland’s World Cup Qualifier against Sweden on Saturday night.  Sweden, who lost out to Germany in the final of the Euro Championships last year, looked strong from the start. 

Within the first ten minutes, Sweden were awarded a penalty after a foul by Jessica Doran on Hanna Folkesson and Kosovare Asllani made no mistake in making it 1-0 to the away team before  Lotta Schelin made it 2-0 shortly afterwards.  Newry City’s Aimee Mackin had a couple of shots on goal before half time but failed to hit the target. 

Sweden continued to pile on the pressure in the second half and it was no surprise when Emma Lundh and Lina Nilsson sealed the victory for Sweden in the closing stages of the match giving the away team a 4-0 win and a 100% record in the qualifiers so far.  This was a comprehensive defeat by a team with many World class stars within their ranks.

Northern Ireland have only managed one point from four games in the campaign and have yet to find the back of the net.  They travel to the Faroe Islands for their next game this Thursday.

Earlier on Saturday, Scotland who are also in Group 4, maintained their unbeatable run in the qualifiers by beating Poland 2-0 thanks to goals by Lisa Evans and Leanne Crichton.

In other groups, England beat Montenegro 9-0, Wales also took 3 points away to Turkey with a 5-1 victory and Rep of Ireland were unlucky to lose 3-2 to Germany in the 91st minute.