A game of few chances had sparked into life when substitute Salma Paralluelo, 19, gave Spain the lead with just 10 minutes remaining.

In the headline from the BBC website, the goalscorer curled home the decisive strike which means she scored the winning goal (when a player hits home the ball it means they have scored a goal), while a decisive strike is one that wins a game - the goal decided the match.

Catalina Usme, who captained Colombia in Melbourne, curled home the decisive strike in the 51st minute.

Germany crash out as another big team falls

Other words that are similar to this include:

• Eliminated - Germany have been eliminated from the World Cup.
• Knocked out - The German side were knocked out after failing to defeat Korea.
• Dumped out of - The Germans were dumped out of the tournament after only drawing with Korea.

This is how The Age online described it: 'James had, in a flash of red mist, morphed from the superstar of this tournament into a villain.'

England went on to win the game on penalties 4-2, but were very lucky indeed to get the win.

 

• South Africa equalised through a remarkable own goal from Benedetta Orsi, who did not check where her goalkeeper, Francesca Durante, was before making a backpass (Guardian.co.uk)
  
• Italy's Benedetta Orsi has an "absolute shocker" as she scores an own goal to level the scores against South Africa at the Women's World Cup (BBC.co.uk)
  

Many TV comemntators and news reports suggested that only the width of the post kept the US team in the competition. This phrase uses the noun form 'width' (from the adjective 'wide') to show how close a team were to scoring a goal or in this case, staying in the competition. Sometimes we might also see/hear mesurements such as millimetres or inches to describe how close something was to happening.

• Width of a post keeps US World Cup hat-trick hopes alive (The Times)
• Women's World Cup Daily: USWNT advances by width of a post (ESPN)

To thump means to beat convincingly; to win by a large margin. Japan beat Spain 4-0 and always looked the most dangerous side. The BBC report went on to say, 'Japan showed why they are serious contenders at the Women's World Cup by hammering Spain.'

To thump and to hammer - to beat by a lot of goals!

Sweden turned on the style to demolish Group G rivals Italy...

To demolish something means to completely break it and this is what happened in the game as the Italian team were completely broken by the dominant Swedish side.

Other words to describe heavy defeats include 'trounce'; 'hammer' and 'receive a hiding'.

Here's a comment from the Guardian newspaper describing Lauren James:

Despite being involved in the senior setup for just under a year, she is, as Leah Williamson so aptly put it, their “cheat code”

Asisat Oshoala scored after a mix-up between Australia's Alanna Kennedy and Mackenzie Arnold

A mix-up is when someone (or in this case more than one person) makes a mistake but probably that this mistake was easily avoidable. Maybe there is a mix-up in communication which is where one person doesn't fully understand another person and this is what happened in the Australian defence when the defender Kennedy and the keeper Arnold both went for the same ball - they didn't communicate clearly and this allowed the Nigerian player Oshoala to score. Because of this mix-up they conceded a goal.