8/3 USA vs NZ (Oly Quarters)

Knock out rounds are here. One game at a time. Win & advance. Lose & go home.

Arlo said 9:30 Friday during the game.

I assume AM and EST?

Yeah, Friday's quite a day:

07:00 - SWE-FRA
09:30 - USA-NZL
12:00 - BRA-JPN
02:30 - GBR-CAN

All times ET.

yikes! That means I have to wake up at like 6:30AM PT to catch the US game. I don't know if I can wake up at 4AM PT for France and Sweden, I might have to pull a "football marathon" for fri...

Thankfully I'm on summer vacation so I don't have to worry about having to work this week

It'll be interesting to see whether O'Reilly or Heath starts.

I planned on leaving work early Friday. I guess I'll stay around so I can watch all of GB-Canada.

Wonder if Pia makes the call on Boxx or not?

Good question. Friday's game will be what, 9 days after the injury? An injury that we don't know how bad it is? And with no good/obvious cm sub on the bench?

The thing is, Boxxy matches up well with New Zealand too and it would be a shame if she wasn't ready for the game.

She didn't cry when she was injured and leaving the pitch so maybe it's a mild injury that can heal. Friday will mark a little over week from when it happened so I'm not sure if that's enough time for the injury. IF she plays while injured she has the risk of making it worse but isn't this Boxxy's last tournament anyways and supposedly her retirement is near?

Trouble with hammies is a mild one may heal in a week-- or it may just stop hurting, but aggravate as soon as you try to play.

And the trouble with trying it out ASAP is-- do you want to have to make a non tactical substitution in a knockout round?

I'd be prone to trying her as the first sub at 60 plus minutes if we have a one or two goal lead. That way if she has to come right back out, its not crippling, and if she's okay, its helpful. Of course one has to get the lead...

Let's just hope NZ doesn't trouble us as much this time as they did in Feb.

Imported from the referee forum Olympic thread:

Here is an article on her ( in Spanish)
http://www.lacapital.com.ar/ed_impr...n-el-arbitraje-argentino-201012-768-6120.html
She is the only woman to have reffed it's division reserves and be a #4

There appears to still be a glass ceiling in Argentina.

Oh..that's a name..I thought you were writing in some cryptographic code.

The US played NZ in February of this year and won 2-1 but didn't tie the game until the 88th minute. Morgan won the game in stoppage time.

You can watch the whole match on youtube



Or just the highlights

Thanks for posting the video links. Lot of cool highlights. The resident anti-Morgan curmudgeon said something about Ali Riley stifling the Baby Horse for 70 minutes but it doesn't look true. Baby Horse earned a PK in the first 10 minutes and had numerous dangerous chances and good attempts. Of course this isn't all on Ali Riley, who is worth annexing New Zealand over even if it means putting up with a lot of sheep.

It is worthwhile annexing the rest of Cascadia, as well. Several good players from there.

We should have gone for 54°40' to begin with, but we got in over our heads with the pig-potato war.

I am so excited for the game! It's sort of a shame because obviously, I am a huge USA fan but I really like NZ. I always root for them in other tournaments, just because they are scrappy, fight hard, and I love some of their players. But, gotta be all USA on this one. It's also sort of an emotional tie between GBR and Canada. It would be great for GBR after that amazing win against Brazil (love it when anyone takes it to them) and because it would be amazing in front of a home crowd. But Canada is awesome, and they also deserve it because they have a great side without getting any money or support from their federation, And Christine Sinclair is one of the, if not THE best women's player in the world. Sigh. Does anyone else feel the same?

BUT, another note.
I have an ethical question for you all. Did anybody think it was strange the hell came down on the women's badminton teams for not playing to their capacity in order to influence their quarterfinal round opponents, but Japan obviously tied South Africa on purpose in women's soccer so that they could influence their quarterfinal round environment and nobody said anything to them?

There was even two articles saying how they played weakly on purpose, but it wasn't seen as anything but tactics. Nothing negative. My first thought when i saw that (before I heard about the women's badminton teams) was that that was CRAP! and bad sportsman ship and not what the Olympics are about.

It's not too late.

It is too late. The pig is long dead. And we can't have more casualties.

Besides, both sides accepted Kaiser Wilhelm's mediation on the pig.

You can't make this stuff up.

The women's badminton has rules specifically against what they did, but the manner in which it was done made it even more horrid. Had they just 'played badly' I dont think anyone would have been the wiser...but they made it so obvious something was bound to be done.

BTW, we did have something similar in soccer years ago.

http://sandwalk.blogspot.ca/2008/08/soccer-team-wins-by-scoring-on-itself.html

Thanks for the links, kool-aide.

I see from the video this was in the formation experiment days. The USA was showing what looked like a 4-3-3 that quickly morfed into an apparent 3-4-3 when a defender went forward.

I wonder what the possibilities of that happening again are?
We seemmed to only have used the 4-4-2 this tournament.

My nightmare scenario is if these two players injure each other:
http://www.calbears.com/sports/w-soccer/spec-rel/080112aab.html
We need Alex to help win the gold, and we need Betsy for our fall NCAA campaign. I hope Coach Neil Mcguire e-mailed them both saying: No reckless cleats up slide tackling!

Starting XI: 1-Solo; 6-LePeilbet, 3-Rampone (c), 16-Buehler, 5-O’Hara; 15-Rapinoe, 10-Lloyd, 12-Cheney, 17-Heath; 13-Morgan, 14-Wambach

I'm going to the gym for this one. Brasil vs Japan after.