US U-17 women beat Samoa 17-0 in record World Cup victory
The United States under-17 women opened their U-17 Women’s World Cup campaign on Monday with a 17-0 win over Samoa in Salé, Morocco, the largest winning margin at any age level in World Cup history.
The result surpassed the previous record — Morocco's 16-0 victory over New Caledonia at the 2025 U-17 men’s World Cup — and featured ten different scorers for the US. The tournament is in year two of an expanded 24-team field. Fifa expanded the field from 16 to 24 teams beginning in 2025 and is staging both the men’s and women’s U-17 World Cups annually through 2029 in an effort to prioritize youth development.
Forward Maddie DiMaria led the US with six goals; she is a 17-year-old high-schooler from St Louis committed to play in college at North Carolina and opened her scoring on 63 minutes. The six-goal haul was the most by a US player in any match and the most by any player in a Women’s World Cup match at any level, and DiMaria is the first player to net six goals in a single match at a Fifa finals since Erling Haaland scored nine at the U-20 men’s World Cup in 2019. “That means everything; he’s an inspiration,” DiMaria said of Haaland. “To be the next player behind that is just such an honor. I’m super blessed to have all those girls finding me in the right places.”
The Americans led 9-0 at half-time and finished the match with 58 shots. Carolina Reyna and 15-year-old Loradana Paletta each scored twice; Reyna is the younger sister of USMNT midfielder Gio Reyna. Samoa goalkeeper Susahna Peacock made 13 saves.
US coach Ciara Crinion reflected on the result to Fifa’s website: “I wasn’t aware [we were breaking a record], but I’m super proud of this group and it’s nice that they have something like that behind their name.” Samoa appeared in their first U-17 Women’s World Cup last year and are one of seven teams to make their U-17 Women’s World Cup debuts in the past two years, with expanded fields and countries at varying levels of development producing lopsided score lines.
The result recalled the senior US 13-0 win over Thailand at the 2019 Women’s World Cup, when Alex Morgan scored five and critics accused the Americans of running up the score. Responding to that 2019 game, US midfielder Julie Ertz said: “The way we respect our opponent is we don’t take it lightly. We take any opponent we have very seriously. We prepare the same way. We have our scouting reports. We train with intensity. And that’s how we show we’re not going to take any opponent lightly.”
The United States play their next group-stage game on Thursday against Kenya, who lost their opener 3-0 to China. The Americans have never won the tournament; they reached the final in the inaugural edition in 2008 and have only reached one semi-finals since, in 2024, and North Korea are the reigning champions.