Olympics football: Japan, France and US reach semi-finals

World Cup winners Japan will face France at Wembley in the semi-finals of the women's tournament after beating Brazil 2-0.

Japan's Yuki Ogimi latched onto Homare Sawa's first-half free-kick before Shinobu Ohno sealed victory late on.

Earlier, France came back from a goal down against Sweden to win 2-1 and book their place in the last four.

Reigning Olympic champions United States joined them after sweeping New Zealand aside 2-0 at St James' Park.

Abby Wambach and Sydney Leroux were on target in each half and they will now play Canada, who beat Britain 2-0, at Old Trafford.

New Zealand competed hard against the strongly fancied American team, yet rarely troubled US keeper Hope Solo in their first knockout tie in a major tournament.

At the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, Brazil had good chances to score after Ogimi's opener for Japan on 27 minutes but Renata Costa, Marta and Cristiane could not hit the target.

As the South Americans pushed for an equaliser it left Ohno enough space on the break to compose herself and finish expertly off the crossbar.

At Hampden Park, France responded to Nilla Fischer's fortunate opener for Sweden with defenders Laura Georges and Wendie Renard scoring from set-pieces.

Les Bleus also reached the semi-finals of the World Cup last summer and were thankful to their keeper Sarah Bouhaddi, who made a superb save to keep out Fischer's volley late on.