Goals from Carli Lloyd and Kelley O'Hara was enough to give the Americans a 2-0 victory over Germany and send them to the Women's World Cup final, where they'll either face England or the holders Japan - to be contested tonight.

The USA hit the ground running with both Julie Johnston and Alex Morgan both coming close to breaking the deadlock within the first fifteen minutes. Morgan had another good opportunity before the interval, but in the end, nothing came of it. Anja Mittag had Germany’s first real chance of the match, 52 minutes in but nothing came of it. Celia Sasic missed a huge opportunity on the hour mark when she put her penalty-kick wide of the mark. Lloyd didn’t make the same mistake with her spot-kick moments later though, to open the scoring and give the USA a slender one-goal advantage. O'Hara added another with six minutes to go to book their place in the final.

Germany's goalkeeper Nadine Angerer was called upon on two separate occasions in the early proceedings, in the sixth minute an American corner was met by the head of Johnston at the near post and Angerer did well to block the shot with her leg. She was in a similar position eight minutes later when Morgan was played through with the striker aiming to put it through her legs in the one-on-one situation, but Angerer was up to the challenge again to thwart her efforts on-goal.

The 'keeper was in serious difficulty in the 37th minute - when a deflected shot completely wrong footed her and it looked destined to be the opening goal but the deflection from the German defender was just enough to send it wide and away to safety. Morgan had another excellent chance a minute before the break when she did brilliantly to take the ball past her marker, with Angerer the only one to beat the lone striker fluffed her chance sending it well wide of the far post.

Germany's struggled for half-chances in the first-half, but early in the second 45, a cross towards the back post found the head of Mittag whose attempt had Hope Solo scrambling across her line to send it behind. They had a huge opportunity to take the lead when they were given a penalty in the 58th minute, Johnston was caught napping which allowed Alexandra Popp to pounce and subsequently pulled down which was enough for referee Teodora Albon to point to the spot.

Top scorer Sasic stepped up to spot having scored two spot-kicks in the previous round against France, she sent Hope the wrong way but it was also the wrong side of the right-hand post meaning Germany’s big chance had gone begging. Only seven minutes later the USA were awarded their own penalty in somewhat controversial circumstances, Morgan went on another mazy run and was blocked off by Annike Krahn. The foul appeared to be outside of the area, but the referee pointed straight to the spot - much to the discontent of the Germans who realised their final hopes were fading by their eyes.

Lloyd stepped up and didn’t make the same mistake that Sasic had minutes beforehand, calmly slotting home to send the Olympic Stadium in Montreal into a frenzy.

With six minutes left the USA secured their place in the final with their second goal, goal-scorer Lloyd produced an excellent run down the left to send a ball across the face of goal from the by-line and O’Hara reacted quickest to tap it into the net. The USA dug deep to grind out a victory against a very good Germany side and were deserving of their victory given their efficient display over the 90 minutes. All of the focus will now be on July 4th and many American fans will be hoping that Morgan will have her shooting boots back on by then after a few missed opportunities in this match.

Germany will be highly disappointed with their performance, they weren’t quite up to scratch in the quarter-final against France and that seemed to carry over into this match as they offered very little to the contest. It could have been all so different if Sasic’s penalty had found the bottom corner but in the end they hadn’t done enough to go the full distance and the better side prevailed in the end.

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About the author
Danial  Kennedy
Award-winning sports journalism graduate. Currently studying a PR Masters at the University of Sunderland. Writing for VAVEL since August 2014. Twitter - @ddkjournalism.