Carli Lloyd (C) of the United States celebrates her scoring with Megan Rapinoe (R) during the Group F match between the United States and Thailand at the 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup in Reims, France, June 11, 2019. The United States won 13-0. (Xinhua/Shan Yuqi)
REIMS, France, June 11 (Xinhua) -- The United States women's football team head coach Jill Ellis ruled out any disrespect towards opponents Thailand after her team refreshed the largest winning margin at the FIFA Women's World Cup at 13-0 in Group F here on Tuesday.
"This is a world championships. Every team here has been fantastic to get to this point. To be respectful to opponents is to play hard against opponents," Ellis said at a press conference after her team's one-sided victory.
"This is a tournament where goal differential is a criteria. Tonight I respect Thailand, I celebrated that they are here, and told several of their players just to keep heads up, as it's part of the growth of the game.
"It's about mentality and confidence. Getting on from the right foot is important. But we've got more to do, stay humble and go back to work. In terms of things that we took away, what we want is a good start," she added.
Ellis said, "World Cup is about competing, peaking, priming players ready for the next game. It will be an incredibly hard World Cup. This is only game one, and we have two more games in our group."
"It's how you want to start the tournament. You want to have that feeling about the World Cup. The biggest take-away is having players feeling good about the game. It's about building momentum. A big result is kind of a fire in terms of their confidence."
For her, there are always things that can be refined and polished.
The U.S. team will take on Chile in the second group match on Sunday.
"I'm not sure exactly what our next opponent will do but teams sit low and it invites us on top of them a lot. I think working at breaking teams down that sit in lower blocks is important for us to continue to grow in that regard," she pointed out.
"We've got enough experience in our team to know this is a twist and turn, up and down, roller coaster ride. They enjoy this tonight and 100 percent know that they need to continue to grow in this tournament and get better," she said.
