SANTO ANTONIO, Portugal, March 5 -- China beat Norway 1-0 in their first group game of the Algarve Cup women's football tournament on Wednesday.

Striker Yang Li scored the winner in the 75th minute when she met an adept pass from teammate Li Ying.

Aya Miyama scored on a free kick in the 83rd minute to salvage a 1-1 draw for Japan against the United States.

The Americans grabbed the lead in the 59th minute through Sydney Leroux, but Miyama's goal forced the U.S. to settle for a point, with the team's next match coming on Friday against Sweden.

In the other two games of the day, Sweden beat Denmark 2-0, while Germany thrashed Iceland 5-0.

Norway looked more dangerous in the first half as their pressing game forced a lot of errors from China.

They came close in the seventh minute when Nora Berge's header hit the post.

But China dominated the second half with their typical possession game, allowing Norway few scoring chances.

"We are a group of young players lacking international experience," said China captain Wu Haiyan. "At the start, we were not nervous, we just needed some time to get used to their play."

China's head coach Hao Wei said he had expected his side to beat Norway.

"Last year, we lost to them 1-0," he said. "We performed better than them, but they won thanks to a fast counter-attack."

"This time, the game was under our control, I expected that we could beat them," he said.

Hao's Norway counterpart Even Pellerud rued his players' wasted chances.

"We've created more chances, but did not score," he said.

"I don't think China attack a lot, they could've created more trouble for us if they had attacked more," he added.

Norway's captain Ingvild Stensland felt sad for being unable to capitalize on their chances.

"We started the game very well, but we didn't score the goal, and China created two chances but scored the important goal," she said.