WINNIPEG, Manitoba -- It was the less dramatic of the day's two games in Group D, but for a while, it was more interesting than the United States might have wanted. Behind two goals from Megan Rapinoe and one from Christen Press, the United States opened the World Cup with a 3-1 win over Australia. As a result of the wild draw between Sweden and Nigeria earlier in the day, the United States already controls its own fate in the group.
Here are three quick observations from the Group D encounter.
1. United States created enough chances for the day
It sure is nice to have Rapinoe on the field. The midfielder, who sat out the team's final send-off exhibition game with an injury, played a hand -- or a foot -- in all three American goals. Her first goal came off a sprint, when she danced around a defender near the edge of the 18-yard box and created a chance with a shot that fortuitously deflected off Australia's Laura Alleway. The second was a distance race in which she carried the ball down the left side and finished at the far post to put the game out of reach in the second half. Finally, she was as instrumental in a supporting role on the goal that put her team ahead for good. After settling a long ball from Solo, Rapinoe wasted no time in sending Leroux on her way down the left side, where the latter opened up space in the defense that Press exploited.
At the same time, the story of the first half and stretches of the second half could be summed up by some wayward Rapinoe shots from distance. Those seemed the sum total of American chances early in the game. The offense was unable to get touches close to the Australian goal, with Abby Wambach underserved and Carli Loyd and Lauren Holiday unable to find footholds. Things got better in the second half, as is so often the case for the United States in the World Cup.
The United States created enough chances on this day. It will need to create more in the days to come. Figuring out how will be a lot less stressful with three points in the bank.
2. Hope Solo was needed
Solo was greeted by loud cheers when she took the field with her fellow goalkeepers to warm up before the rest of the team, and she received one of the louder ovations when the team's starting lineup was announced.
A day after attention was once again drawn to her life off the field by an ESPN "Outside the Lines" report on her 2014 arrest on domestic violence charges, the game was barely a quarter-hour old when Solo showed why what continues to matter most to many fans is what she does when on the field for her country.
In the fifth minute, Solo kept the United States from falling behind when she moved to her left to parry an Emily van Egmond shot off the crossbar. It was the kind of save that has shaped her reputation as arguably the best goalkeeper in women's football. She was even better in the 13th minute, when she went low to stop a first-time shot across her body from Samantha Kerr on a ball that arrived from the far side of the field. When Australia did get the ball past Solo on Lisa De Vanna's goal, there was little the keeper could have done.
The fact that the United States was in position to take control in the second half had a lot to do with Solo's play in the first half. She remains as good at what she does as anyone ever.
3. United States enjoys home-field advantage
On the scale of afternoon excursions, Winnipeg is not particularly close to the United States. Even Minneapolis, which feels like it ought to be at least kind of close, is an eight-hour drive -- at least, that's what the fans from Eden Prairie, Minnesota, relayed as they rode the hotel elevator already in their jerseys Monday morning. They weren't alone in adding blue to the red and white north of the border, as Americans turned out in force in the overall crowd of 31,148 to support the national team in its game against Australia.
Although Winnipeg is a trek for Americans, it's a heck of a lot easier to reach than Chengdu, China, or Dresden, Germany, the cities in which the United States began World Cup play in the past two tournaments. Throw in Greece, England and another dose of China for the past three Olympics, and this is the best chance American fans have had to see their national team in a major international event since the 2003 World Cup, when many of the jersey-wearing girls in the stands in Winnipeg were little more than toddlers.
Given the proximity of cities such as Seattle and Portland to Vancouver and of Boston and New York to potential knockout-round sites such as Montreal and Ottawa, Monday's crowd might turn out to be one of the more modest American contingents, but it was still hard to miss -- and hard not to hear.
It helped the atmosphere in the stadium and couldn't have hurt the team on the field.