Ahn Hong-seok (AFP) – Germany, who are in the same group as South Korea at the FIFA Women’s World Cup Australia-New Zealand 2023, showed off their ‘firepower’ in their opening group game against Morocco to record a six-point victory.

Germany cruised to a 6-0 victory over Morocco, led by a multi-goal performance from Alexandra Pope, in their opening Group H match at Rectangular Stadium in Melbourne, Australia, on Thursday.

Germany, ranked second in the FIFA rankings and having won the first ever back-to-back Women’s World Cup titles in 2003 in the United States and 2007 in China, are among the favourites to win the tournament alongside the United States, Sweden and England.

With the win, Germany extended their unbeaten streak in their first match of the tournament to six matches, dating back to the 2003 tournament.

They also extended their unbeaten run against African teams at the World Cup to six matches.

Morocco are the lowest-ranked team in Group H at 72nd in the FIFA rankings and the second-lowest-ranked underdogs in the entire competition, behind only Zambia (77th).

They qualified for the World Cup for the first time after finishing runners-up at the 2022 Africa Cup of Women Nations.

Colleen Bell’s side open their campaign against Colombia on 25 July at 11am. They will then face Morocco on 30 July and Germany on 3 August.

Germany dominated the Moroccans in a one-sided match, outplaying them in size, speed and activity.

Popp, who holds the record for most A-match goals by an active German women’s player, scored two first-half goals with her head.

Popp opened the scoring in the 11th minute, finishing off a cross from Katrin Hendrich with a high header, and then added a second in the 39th minute with a diving header off a corner kick from the left by Clara Bühl.

With her two goals on the day, Pope extended her career A-match tally to 64 goals.

Germany made it 3-0 at the start of the second half.

In the first minute of the second half, Bühl collected a loose ball in the middle of the field and calmly finished with a right-footed ground ball.

Morocco, who refused to give up and were looking for an equaliser, had to settle for a goal seven minutes into the second half when Anissa Rahmari rattled the post with a right-footed shot, but was ruled to have been in an offside position when she received a forward pass earlier.카지노

Morocco collapsed after back-to-back own goals from Hanane Ait El Haji in the ninth minute and Zineb Ledouani in the 34th minute.

Leah Schiller’s 45th-minute wedge gave Germany a frightening look as they tried to score in nine minutes of stoppage time.

In the other Group G match at Auckland’s Eden Park, Italy defeated Argentina 1-0.

In the 42nd minute, Cristiana Girelli headed home Lisa Boattin’s diagonal cross from the left to seal a tightly contested match in favour of Italy.

Italy (W3 D3 L1 G1) finished second in the group on goal difference behind Sweden (W3 D3 L1 G2), who defeated South Africa 2-1 the previous day.