Good evening and welcome to our coverage of the Women's World Cup Final in Frankfurt between Japan and USA.

Very early chance for USA as Cheney outmuscles Iwasimizu and gets in on goal but from a very tight angle on the left, Kaihori makes the save and it goes for a corner

Japan get the game underway.

Japan win the toss, and we are seconds away from kick-off in the sixth Women's World Cup final

The singing is over, the hand shaking is complete, time for a quick photo and now it's the coin toss

The teams are out on the pitch and the national anthems are underway

The officials for tonight's final all come from the host nation of Germany, Bibiana Steinhaus takes charge of the game.

USA are odds on favourites with most bookies for this game, experience probably swinging their opinion towards the Americans, but I'm sure no one is counting out the Japanese.

USA's six yellow cards and one red card makes them joint worst in terms of discipline in the tournament. They may need to take a fairly physical approach to counter the technical expertise of the Japanese.

Japan captain Homare Sawa is currently tied with Brazil's Marta for the Golden Boot with four goals. She will want to claim the prize for herself tonight, but so will USA's Abby Wambach who is just behind her on three goals. A goal for Wambach would make her out-right second in the all-time World Cup goalscorers list with 13.

Japan have only conceded four goals in the five games they have played so far, however USA are the top scorers in the competition with 11, an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object?

Big news for USA is Amy Rodriguez dropping to the bench and Megan Rapinoe starting, a bold move from coach Pia Sundhage and very disappointing for the Philadelphia striker

Team News: USA: Solo, Rampone, Lepeilbet, Boxx, O'Reilly, Lloyd, Krieger, Cheney, Rapinoe, Buehler, Wambach.

Team News: Japan: Kaihori, Kinga, Iwashimizu, Kumagai, Sakaguchi, Ando, Miyama, Kawasumi, Sawa, Ohno, Sameshima.

USA are competing in their third World Cup final whereas this is Japan's first appearance in the showpiece match. Worryingly for Japan, USA have never failed to win the tournament when they have reached this stage.