BristolUK

Exactly.

The full back - can't recall her name - made a couple of bad errors as well, although she did make recovering tackles both times.

Yep, France are one of the best teams. But so is England. Their rankings are 3 and 6. Not a huge difference but that makes the mistakes more glaring.

This is an expanded tournament with some "minnows" who wouldn't normally be involved. Take away the results involving them and it's not been high scoring when teams of a similar level have played.

More than pretty good Maybe not too generous, more, perhaps underestimating the team's level. Ranked 6th in the world should not be making so many mistakes.


Absolutely right.

It's a tie-breaker. For the purposes of the competition it means being knocked out but for all other purposes it's a draw. Nothing between the two teams. (Except if one team misses a hatfull of chances or something)

kswoosh

Didn't know we were ranked as high as 6.

Amazing when you consider that last night was the first time that England Ladies have won a knockout game at a World Cup.

That said, England men are ranked top 10 quite frequently, yet we are pretty inconsistent at major tournaments. Not sure how much can be taken from the FIFA rankings. Widely debated, and often the metrics don't make much sense.

I still think England v Canada will be a good game, even if it finishes 0-0. It will be one mistake, or hopefully, one piece of brilliance, that wins the game for either team.

I can see the momentum generated from winning what could be a real hard fought game carrying the winning team on to the final. Canada had to battle to beat Switzerland (who, I was interested to hear, are appearing at their first World Cup, yet looked far far better than the other countries making their debut), and England had to really dig deep to beat the Norweigans, who have been around the block many a-time (and ranked 5th). Hopefully it won't take too much out of the teams, and they can utilise the momentum to dispose of Japan.

That's of course assuming that Japan beat Australia! Australia were EPIC against Brazil, and thoroughly deserved their win. Brazil have knocked Australia out of the past 2 (?) World Cups, and that win was the first time Australia (men or women) have won a knockout game at a World Cup. They really are turning out to be the dark horse of the tournament, and I think a lot of the neutrals will be rooting for them to pull up some more trees. Good on them, they're going about it in the right way - good honest football, with hard working players, and they are really playing to their strengths.

Then it'll be one of France, USA or Germany in the final from the other side of the bracket. Getting tough now! France v Germany will be a great game. Two fantastic attacking sides, with Germany's back line not really being tested yet.

I genuinely think anyone of USA, Germany, France, Canada, Australia, Japan or England could go all the way here. There's not a huge amount to pick between them. Canada haven't really found their groove yet, but are clearly capable.

I'm excited to see what happens! I'm enjoying it far more than I have done most of the men's major tournaments recently, and it's certainly better than the cheating, diving prima-donnas of the English Premier League.

(Sorry for mammoth post!)

BristolUK

Quarter finalists last time. Lost (to France) on penalties. Where have I heard that before?

kswoosh

Hmm... haha.

Apparently they have been practicing penalties for a month before the tournament.

Feel free to disagree with me here, but that just seems like bad preparation to me. It's almost like you're admitting you're bad at penalties, and need to practice, which then psychologically adds far more weight to penalties. And given that 90% of penalty taking is mental, having the wrong psychological approach to them could be catastrophic.

You can't practice penalties. Get me in a no-pressure situation, and I'll score 9/10 penalties. Put me in a game, or tournament, and you'll be picking it out of the trees next to the field 9 times out of 10. I am absolutely awful at penalties, and I am 100% certain that missing my first ever penalty still effects me now. Missing penalties is the football equivalent of not being able to get it up...!

I guess there is the argument of muscle memory, though. And creating confidence through repetitive successful outcomes, but I'm not buying it, personally.

Former Lancastrian

Well if it does go to penalties you are now using 5 players instead of one player who would normally take them.
There is not one player even in the mens game who has a 100% record they all miss eventually.
The mens national squad seem to have a terrible record in penalty shoot outs so why assume the women would suffer from the same stigma?
Now for some fun these are the 5 male players if all playing on the same team I would have taking them

Mario Balotelli
Eden Hazard
Frank Lampard
Zlatan Ibrahimovic
Cristiano Ronaldo

BristolUK

Don't get me started. I completely agree. You cannot replicate the pressure situation. And for those that say a golfer has the same pressure but still practices a putt, there is no outside influence or luck on a putt. If his putt is good it goes in the hole. If it's not good it never goes in.

The first thing is that 60% of penalty shoot outs are won by the team taking them first. That means you are 50% (60/40) more likely to win just because you won the toss - unless you're daft enough to go second.

Then, when you watch a shoot out, typically at least a third are in a part of the goal where the keeper would save it by staying still or guessing correctly. Because it is a guess.

A player may be more likely to shoot to one side than the other but unless they have a never changing pattern and you are aware of that pattern and know at what stage of that pattern the player is and that he's going to stick with that pattern then it's still a guess.

Every penalty shoot out includes includes 2 or 3 that would be saved if the keeper didn't go the wrong way. Every penalty shoot out includes a couple of well taken penalties that are saved because of the lucky guess. A poorly struck penalty, with the keeper guessing correctly, may still go in if he is at a different height.

Then there's the fact that they don't take place in front of a neutral crowd. You've either got a few thousand people in front of you willing you to score or doing all they can to put you off.

There are exceptions regarding certain teams or individuals but they are exceptions for a reason.

kswoosh

I saw Fat Frank arguing over taking a penalty when at West Ham in an Intertoto Cup game against Metz. He made a big song and dance about it, and then missed the penalty, which ultimately knocked West Ham out.

But yes - that list is very good. You'd expect 5/5 most times. Apart from Balotelli, where anything is possible!!

Former Lancastrian

Actually Balotelli had a perfect 100% record until he missed 2 for AC Milan.
There again having a good goal keeper could enter into it.

BristolUK

You missed out Bruce Bannister. Even at 68

Oink

the value of punctuation

mikelincs

and spelling... Awesomevice!!!!1111!!!!

Greenhill

ENGLAND V CANADA
Venue: BC Place, Vancouver Date: 28 June Kick-off: 00:30 BST

In case you'd planned to watch the match tomorrow, it's actually on today, 27 June:

16:30 BC time
19:30 EST

BristolUK

Congrats for a hard fought victory.

caretaker

+1

Greenhill

I really enjoyed it.

I think there's been a lot of one-touch football in the tournament (what I've seen of it, so far). Yeah, some of it doesn't come off, but when it does, it's pretty exciting