Olympic women’s football: Team GB beat Japan to qualify for knockout stages

Great Britain guaranteed their progress to the knockout stages of the Olympic women’s football competition with victory over hosts Japan in Sapporo.

Both teams took the knee before kick-off in an empty Sapporo Dome.

Hege Riise’s side are top of Group E with one game remaining, while Japan are third with one point going into their final group match against Chile.

In the earlier Group E kick-off, Manchester City’s Janine Beckie scored twice to give Canada a 2-1 victory over Chile, who are yet to pick up a point.

White produces winning moment again

White continued her impressive goalscoring form at international level and was the matchwinner yet again after her two goals had given GB victory over Chile in their opening game.

It means GB are in the driving seat to top the group. They play Canada, who sit two points behind them, on Tuesday (12:00 BST kick-off).

Riise made four changes to the side who beat Chile, with Scotland’s Kim Little taking the armband off Steph Houghton, while Wales’ Sophie Ingle started her first game for GB.

But it was Manchester City youngster Lauren Hemp who was again the main threat down the left in the first half.

Her two tame headers were GB’s only chances of note before the break and Japan were causing problems down Bronze’s wing with smart overlapping runs.

But White produced a moment of quality when it mattered, running across the goalkeeper to take advantage of her error and nod in the winner with less than 20 minutes remaining.

She also scored the winning goal against Japan for England at the SheBelieves Cup a year ago.

‘It puts us in a good position’

Team GB head coach Hege Riise: “We are all happy with two wins now. It puts us in a good position, able to rest players and recover well. We are very happy.

“We put Sophie Ingle in more as a defensive player against Japan. I think that worked well.

“Of course attacking-wise we lacked a little more. But we knew that could happen. I feel like the connection has got better and better each game and that’s what we need to get used to.

“That will be during the tournament as well. In the second half we changed the formation a little. We came out well and controlled the game much better.”

Japan’s Saki Kumagai on their decision to take the knee: “We had a discussion as a team. It has really given us the opportunity to talk about racial discrimination, and [taking the knee] was also about the fact that we have respect towards Great Britain.”

‘GB need to play better against Canada’ – analysis

Former Great Britain captain Casey Stoney on BBC One:

Team GB will want to play better and they will need to as the tournament progresses.

But in tournaments you need to win and they’ve got three points on the board, six points in total and they are through to the quarter-finals. That is the main thing.

You want to top the group, you want to play third place rather than second place in the Dutch and Brazil group.

Canada manager Bev Priestman will know a lot of these players very well having been an England assistant under Phil Neville.

It’s a big job for Team GB but they are good enough to win that game against Canada on Tuesday.

Former Great Britain international Karen Carney on BBC Radio 5 Live:

Bronze is so good getting down that right-hand side and into attacking areas. She pushes defenders back.

If you put the ball into the box, there is no-one better than White to sniff out opportunities and we saw that with the goal.

She got across the defender, anticipated it, was brave and it’s a fantastic finish.