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Tournament Honours
Brilliant Iwabuchi The Queen Of The Cup
by Jeremy Ruane
Brilliant Japanese midfield maestro Mana Iwabuchi was crowned queen of the inaugural FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup Finals at North Harbour Stadium on Sunday, when she was voted by accredited media as winner of the Adidas Golden Ball award.
Despite playing just three games in the finals, the gifted number ten was a worthy winner of the prized honour, which is presented to the competition's most outstanding player.
The Silver Ball was awarded to Germany's outstanding number ten, Dzsenifer Marozsan, was USA number ten, Kristie Mewis, collected the Bronze Ball.
Marozsan had the consolation of winning the Adidas Golden Shoe, which is presented to the tournament's top goalscorer. Her six goals and two assists made her the clear winner of the prize, heading off Vicki DiMartino (USA, Silver Shoe winner) and Jon Hyong Mwa.
The North Korean won the Bronze Shoe on a countback from the USA's Courtney Verloo. Both had identical records - four goals and one assist - but the American striker had played two minutes
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more than her World Cup-winning rival.
The USA's Taylor Vancil was presented with the Adidas Golden Glove award as the competition's most outstanding goalkeeper, as selected by FIFA's Technical Study Group.
Germany won the FIFA Fair Play Award, while New Zealand were the highest-ranked team in this category of those countries eliminated after the conclusion of round-robin action.
Final FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup rankings:
1 DPR Korea
2 USA
3 Germany
4 England
5 Japan
6 Korea Republic
7 Canada
8 Denmark
9 Ghana
10 Nigeria
11 France
12 New Zealand
13 Columbia
14 Brazil
15 Costa Rica
16 Paraguay
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