Published September 13, 2026
The U.S. Under-20 Women’s National Team went into Saturday’s final group-stage match at the FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup with one point from two games and a real chance of going home early. It left Zagłębie Sports Park in Sosnowiec, Poland, having scored nine unanswered goals against New Zealand — the loudest possible answer to a tournament that had, until that point, gone almost entirely wrong.
A Team That Needed This
Context matters here more than usual, because a 9-0 scoreline can look like total dominance from the start when it wasn’t. The Americans opened their World Cup with a 2-1 loss to Italy, then salvaged a point in a 2-2 draw with Japan — a start that left them needing a win over New Zealand just to have a realistic path to the knockout rounds as one of the tournament’s best third-place teams. Anything less than a win, and possibly a lopsided one, would have ended their tournament in the group stage.
They didn’t just win. Alex Buck opened the scoring in the fourth minute, and captain Kennedy Fuller added a penalty two minutes later. New Zealand never recovered. Micayla Johnson made it 3-0 in the 38th minute, Linda Ullmark scored her first-ever World Cup goal in first-half stoppage time, and the rout continued after the break: Emeri Adames in the 60th, Buck’s second in the 58th, Sealey Strawn in the 87th, and Fuller completing her hat trick with goals in the 83rd and second minute of stoppage time. New Zealand, the Oceania champions and a side with a genuine history of tournament competitiveness — they reached a FIFA quarterfinal as recently as 2014 — never found an answer.
The Players This Site Already Knew About
Three of the afternoon’s central figures are players covered here when the U.S. announced its roster for this tournament back in August, and it’s worth connecting the dots plainly rather than treating this as a surprise.
Kennedy Fuller, the Bay FC midfielder and U.S. captain, delivered the sixth hat trick by an American player in FIFA U-19/U-20 Women’s World Cup history. It pushed her career tally to seven World Cup goals across two different tournaments — four at the 2024 U-17 World Cup, three here — and five goals specifically at the U-20 level.
Micayla Johnson, the Chicago Stars forward, scored in her third consecutive FIFA youth World Cup across three consecutive years, following goals at both the 2024 and 2025 U-17 World Cups. According to U.S. Soccer, she’s the first American player in history to score in three straight FIFA youth World Cups. That’s not hyperbole attached to a good goal — it’s a specific, checkable record, and it’s exactly the kind of long-term development storyline that gets lost in a single day’s box score.
Linda Ullmark, the Houston Dash midfielder, scored her first World Cup goal at any level, redirecting a low cross from teammate Hope Munson just before halftime. It’s a smaller moment than Fuller’s hat trick or Johnson’s streak, but it’s the kind of goal a player remembers regardless of the scoreline around it.
Alex Buck, a Washington Huskies forward not currently on an NWSL roster, added two goals of her own — her third and fourth at the U-20 level — becoming the tenth American player to score an exact brace in a U-20 Women’s World Cup match.
What Happens Next
The result was enough to send the U.S. through as one of the tournament’s best third-place teams, finishing behind Italy and Japan in Group D. Their reward is a Round of 16 matchup against Brazil, a genuine step up in difficulty from the group they just survived. FIFA’s own tournament coverage called it a “blockbuster” tie, and it’s not hard to see why: a team that needed a statement win just to advance now needs a real one to keep going.
New Zealand’s tournament ends here. For the Junior Football Ferns, Saturday was a harder version of a familiar story — a program with real history at this level (that 2014 quarterfinal remains a high point) running into a stronger side in a must-win match and getting overwhelmed rather than merely beaten.
For the Americans, the more useful read isn’t the scoreline itself. It’s that a team that looked genuinely shaky through two matches produced its best performance of the tournament exactly when it had no other option. Whether that’s a sign of real depth showing up under pressure, or simply New Zealand being a bad matchup for them specifically, is the question the Brazil match should start to answer.