{"id":2813,"date":"2012-07-25T14:10:24","date_gmt":"2012-07-25T18:10:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/inspiringathletes\/?p=2813"},"modified":"2012-07-25T14:15:21","modified_gmt":"2012-07-25T18:15:21","slug":"u-s-womens-soccer-team-opens-with-4-2-victory-against-france","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/2012\/07\/u-s-womens-soccer-team-opens-with-4-2-victory-against-france.html","title":{"rendered":"U.S. Women&#8217;s Soccer Team opens with 4-2 victory against France"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_2814\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2814\" style=\"width: 160px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/inspiringathletes\/files\/2012\/07\/Cheney1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-2814 \" title=\"Lauren Cheney\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/256\/2012\/07\/Cheney1-200x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"160\" height=\"240\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-2814\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lauren Cheney<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The Opening Ceremonies aren&#8217;t until Friday, but women&#8217;s soccer got started today at the Summer Olympics. In Glasgow, Scotland, the U.S. Women&#8217;s Team kicked off its defense of the 2008 gold medal with a 4-2 victory against France. The Americans got off to a poor start and were quickly down 2-0 in the first half before tying things up heading into halftime. In the second half, however, Team USA scored a pair of unanswered goals and picked up three points in Group G.<\/p>\n<p>Alex Morgan scored two goals to lead the Americans and the team also got solid play from Lauren Cheney who had two shots on goal and Tobin Heath whose sharp ball-handling skills were key as the U.S. put the game on ice. Read more from Cheney and Heath from these previous Inspiring Athletes interviews:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/inspiringathletes\/2012\/07\/a-conversation-with-u-s-olympian-lauren-cheney.html\" target=\"_blank\">A conversation with Lauren Cheney<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/inspiringathletes\/2012\/06\/a-conversation-with-u-s-olympian-tobin-heath.html\" target=\"_blank\">A conversation with Tobin Heath<\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>Read more from Heath in Chad Bonham&#8217;s book <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Glory-Games-Chad-Bonham\/dp\/1938254023\/ref=la_B001H6POM0_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1343239566&amp;sr=1-1\" target=\"_blank\">Glory of the Games<\/a> which also features several <em>other past and present Olympians including Shannon Miller, Tamika Catchings, Kevin Durant, Josh Davis, Dave Johnson and Ryan Hall.<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Opening Ceremonies aren&#8217;t until Friday, but women&#8217;s soccer got started today at the Summer Olympics. In Glasgow, Scotland, the U.S. Women&#8217;s Team kicked off its defense of the 2008 gold medal with a 4-2 victory against France. The Americans got off to a poor start and were quickly down 2-0 in the first half&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":418,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,578,382,473,5,4],"tags":[477,1139,910,957,1010,485],"class_list":["post-2813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christian-athletes","category-olympic-athletes","category-qa","category-soccer","category-sports-features","category-sports-news","tag-alex-morgan","tag-glasgow-scotland","tag-lauren-cheney","tag-london","tag-summer-olympics","tag-tobin-heath"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>U.S. Women&#039;s Soccer Team opens with 4-2 victory against France - Inspiring Athletes<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/2012\/07\/u-s-womens-soccer-team-opens-with-4-2-victory-against-france.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"U.S. Women&#039;s Soccer Team opens with 4-2 victory against France - Inspiring Athletes\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Opening Ceremonies aren&#8217;t until Friday, but women&#8217;s soccer got started today at the Summer Olympics. In Glasgow, Scotland, the U.S. Women&#8217;s Team kicked off its defense of the 2008 gold medal with a 4-2 victory against France. The Americans got off to a poor start and were quickly down 2-0 in the first half&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/2012\/07\/u-s-womens-soccer-team-opens-with-4-2-victory-against-france.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Inspiring Athletes\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-07-25T18:10:24+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2012-07-25T18:15:21+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/inspiringathletes\/files\/2012\/07\/Cheney1-200x300.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Chad Bonham\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"U.S. Women's Soccer Team opens with 4-2 victory against France - Inspiring Athletes","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/2012\/07\/u-s-womens-soccer-team-opens-with-4-2-victory-against-france.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"U.S. Women's Soccer Team opens with 4-2 victory against France - Inspiring Athletes","og_description":"The Opening Ceremonies aren&#8217;t until Friday, but women&#8217;s soccer got started today at the Summer Olympics. In Glasgow, Scotland, the U.S. Women&#8217;s Team kicked off its defense of the 2008 gold medal with a 4-2 victory against France. The Americans got off to a poor start and were quickly down 2-0 in the first half&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/2012\/07\/u-s-womens-soccer-team-opens-with-4-2-victory-against-france.html","og_site_name":"Inspiring Athletes","article_published_time":"2012-07-25T18:10:24+00:00","article_modified_time":"2012-07-25T18:15:21+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/inspiringathletes\/files\/2012\/07\/Cheney1-200x300.jpg"}],"author":"Chad Bonham","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/2012\/07\/u-s-womens-soccer-team-opens-with-4-2-victory-against-france.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/2012\/07\/u-s-womens-soccer-team-opens-with-4-2-victory-against-france.html","name":"U.S. Women's Soccer Team opens with 4-2 victory against France - Inspiring Athletes","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/2012\/07\/u-s-womens-soccer-team-opens-with-4-2-victory-against-france.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/2012\/07\/u-s-womens-soccer-team-opens-with-4-2-victory-against-france.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/inspiringathletes\/files\/2012\/07\/Cheney1-200x300.jpg","datePublished":"2012-07-25T18:10:24+00:00","dateModified":"2012-07-25T18:15:21+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/#\/schema\/person\/95c3e9443bb9bfa81645d8daef1193c1"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/2012\/07\/u-s-womens-soccer-team-opens-with-4-2-victory-against-france.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/2012\/07\/u-s-womens-soccer-team-opens-with-4-2-victory-against-france.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/2012\/07\/u-s-womens-soccer-team-opens-with-4-2-victory-against-france.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/inspiringathletes\/files\/2012\/07\/Cheney1-200x300.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/inspiringathletes\/files\/2012\/07\/Cheney1-200x300.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/2012\/07\/u-s-womens-soccer-team-opens-with-4-2-victory-against-france.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"U.S. Women&#8217;s Soccer Team opens with 4-2 victory against France"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/","name":"Inspiring Athletes","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Chad Bonham","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/#\/schema\/person\/95c3e9443bb9bfa81645d8daef1193c1","name":"Chad Bonham","description":"Chad has been working in mass media for over 20 years. Chad\u2019s professional journey began at the University of Tulsa where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (1993) while working extensively in athletic media relations and serving as a sports editor for The Collegian. Since then, he has written extensively for such publications as Relevant, CCM, Christian Retailing, New Man, Charisma, Today\u2019s Christian, Ministries Today, Breakaway, Brio, Sports Spectrum, Christian Single, Faith &amp; Friends, Sharing the Victory and Gospel Today. He has authored, co-authored or ghost written and edited 13 books including Life in the Fairway (New Leaf Press), Glory of the Games (Cross Training), Wrestling with God (River Oak), Spiritual Journeys (Relevant) and the four-part Fellowship of Christian Athletes Core Value Series; Excellence, Teamwork, Serving and Integrity (Regal Books). Chad is currently working on five new books including Sooner Legacy, Husker Legacy and Lessons From Sooner Football (Cross Training) as well as The Faith of Stock Car Racing (Judson Press). When he's not writing, Chad lends his efforts to various independent television and film projects. He was the coordinating producer for Choosing Life (2010) and Life Happens (2011). Chad is currently serving as producer on a forthcoming documentary about Super Bowl champion Brian Kinchen. Chad and his wife Amy live in Broken Arrow, Okla., with sons Lance (September 2003), Cole (February 2008) and Quinn (February 2011).","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/author\/cbonham"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/418"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2813"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2813\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2818,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2813\/revisions\/2818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}