The best way to sum up the opening game in Group C might just be the moment when the Costa Rica goalkeeper got cramp. Daniela Solera’s save count was in double figures and she had more touches than any of her teammates on a wet, windy evening in Wellington when Spain had threatened to rack up the kind of score that needs spelling out, but at the end of 90 sometimes desperate minutes spent with her opponents in dangerously close proximity, she had been beaten only three times.
All three came inside six first-half minutes, strikes from Esther González, Aitana Bonmatí and an own goal from Valeria del Campo giving Spain a victory that stopped short of being a serious statement but occasionally came close.
