Women’s U17 World Cup Opening Round Delivers Goal-Scoring Fireworks and Early Golden Boot Contenders

20/10/2025

The first round of the 2025 Women’s under 17 world Cup concluded on Sunday with a flurry of action, witnessing 46 goals scored by 40 different players across the opening set of matches.

Record Margins and High Scorers

The round was highlighted by commanding victories and an absolute goal-fest:

Biggest Margin: China PR delivered the most comprehensive win, thrashing Norway 5-0 in a performance that sent an early statement to Group C.
Highest Scoring Game: The encounter between the Netherlands and the Central African nation, Cameroon, proved to be the most exciting, with the Netherlands narrowly edging out a 4-3 victory.

Golden Boot Race

The battle for the Golden Boot has an immediate set of contenders emerging from the first round:

Six players managed to secure a brace (two goals) in their respective matches.

The early frontrunners are China PR’s X. Zhou (who scored in the 45+6′ and 57′ minutes) and Fang, who scored in the 82nd and 89th minutes. Both players’ contributions powered China’s dominant victory and placed them in an automatic position as strong contenders for the award.

Other players who bagged a brace include:

G. Galli (Italy)
Thais Gallais (France)
Julia Amireh (Canada)
C. Chacón Peso (Spain)

Penalty and Own Goal Incidents

Two penalty goals were converted in the first round, scored by Ye-yun Jang of South Korea and Yuna Aoki of Japan.
In an unfortunate and rare occurrence, both of the round’s two own goals were scored by players from Zambia during their 2-1 defeat to Paraguay. The players were Mary Nyangu and Nana Malanda.