Poland line-up As expected coach Stepiński was forced to call a lot of subs into starting XI. Norway started tournament on 27th Feb, having 2 days rest and then again 4 while Poland started 1st March and had only two days of rest between games.
Iceland - Portugal 4-1 Highlights. Taken from RÚV the icelandic state television. Not sure if you can watch it from outside Iceland. http://www.ruv.is/frett/sjadu-morkin-ur-sigri-islands-gegn-portugal
It's perfectly visible for me in Italy, thanks! Was it "mom" Dagny Brynjardottir with the beautiful assist for third goal? How old her son is, right now?
Ha: The Dutch manage to escape last place by beating China on penalties after a 1-1 tie. Naturally, Miedema scored the lone Dutch goal and she had the clincher in penalties after Spitze missed the first chance to win it. Statistically, The Netherlands dominated the match, with shots 25/12 to 7/1. Didn't see the game but sounds like the Dutch missed chances--I know they hit the crossbar twice and of course gave up a goal with a back four that apparently played well but is not going to hold up--at all--against a Top 5 Fifa team. At least they got to practice penalties in real-match situation--not a bad thing at all in the runup to a World Cup. There's a positive!
Yes it was. Her son should be around 7 or 8 months old. The goalscorer was Margrét Lára Viðarsdóttir who holds the record for most goals scored for the Icelandic national team (78 goals) and arguably Iceland's greatest ever player. Sadly she was unable to play in the Euro 17 due to ligament injuries. This was only her second game since June 2017.
Congrats NORWAY !!! Poland 0 - 3 Norway (Herlovsen 24' Hansen 66' Saevik 74') Again congrats Norway! there wasn't any doubt which side was better tonite! Well done Poland...ranked 34th - lowest of all teams yet you'll bring home silver!
How sweet it is! Algarve Cup Founded 1994 Region Algarve, Portugal Number of teams 12 Current champions Norway (5th title) Most successful team(s) United States (10 titles) 2019 Algarve Cup Tournament details Host country Portugal Dates 27 February – 6 March Teams 12 (from 3 confederations) Final positions Champions Norway (5th title) Runners-up Poland Third place Canada Fourth place Sweden Source: Wikipedia pages
The final: Poland 0-3 Norway (24' Herlovsen, 65' Hansen, 74' Sævik) Third place match Canada 0-0 Sweden (6-5 after penalty shootout with 7 PK taken from either team! ) 5th place-match: Scotland 1-0 Denmark (34' Ross) 7th place match: Switzerland 0-2 Spain (21' Hermoso, 63' Ismaili (own goal)) 9th place match: Portugal 1-4 Iceland (88' Mendes - 2' Albertsdottir, 37' Magnusdottir, 89' Viđarsdottir, 90' Guđmundsdottir) 11th place match China 1-1 Netherlands (50' Yao - 45' Miedema) (penalty shootout 2-4) Videos mostly not available yet.
This is the first time I took notice of the Algarve Cup, and while it is perfectly fine, I think it would be better with fewer teams. Twelve teams seems too many. Eight, at most, might be better, no? She Believes has four top teams and is more interesting for that reason.
Not sure about that. First thing to notice is the fact that the number of teams has to do with the history of the competition: Algarve Cup was born as a "training tournament" for Nordic teams like Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, at the end of the winter season, when their football was on break but their NTs needed to get back into fitness: at some point they took the excuse to invite top-level teams for a tougher test; meanwhile Portugal didn't want to just play the host, so they were inviting "lesser" teams and they were expressly creating a "third group", that was basically ancillary to the two big ones. By the way, this strategy, year in year out, was for sure one of the reasons that made Portugal NT improve: I remember being in Algarve back in 2012 and seeing them beat Ireland in a highly-contested match, back when the "third group" teams weren't allowed to compete for the final win: now they can battle with the big ones and sometimes they even manage to get surprising wins, like the one Portugal just had vs Sweden. You could rightfully say: who cares about history, we're in 2019! And you would be right, at least in some sense: things have to advance. But I guess that it's also correct to remember where things come from, so they can advance along the right patterns. You see, I've been in Algarve to watch the Cup twice, and there is a special atmosphere to it. Not big cities and huge crowds measured in thousands, but little charming places out of time, where you can consider yourself lucky if you gather some hundreds of people on the standings. It's not made in the spirit of the "big show" (even less, now that USA don't take part), on the contrary it connects to the "quiet holiday with some fun" part of you. It's kind of old school, sure, closer to what women's football was twenty years ago than to what it is right now, so you could say it's time to abandon those ways, but I think there are things about the genuine pioneer-like spirit of the women's football of old that it's worth keeping alive, because they are part of what attracted a lot of fans to it. Also, even by just a "professional" point of view, the structure of this tournament makes sense if you look for something in particular: for instance the feeling of the "group-stage" of a big international competition, followed by a short "knock-out round" of just one game. It's not like, at the WWC, you tipically meet 4 "top 10 teams" in the same group as you do when you compete at SheBelieves Cup: there is normally a mix more similar to the one Algarve Cup offers. A big team like USA, always aiming for the top spots, can find a clash vs best-teams-only more useful than battling with minions at Algarve, but for many other teams it's actually the opposite and they can enjoy the Algarve as it is. Probably, in fact, USWNT did the right move leaving Algarve, because it wasn't actually the kind of preparation they were looking for, so they tailored one for themselves. Anyway, sorry for the long post: bottom line is that, in my opinion, Algarve Cup just needs adjustments (I'll admit I didn't like the three-teams groups from this year's edition) and not a massive overhaul.
I'm sure the tourney organizers as well as hotels/hospitality industry would prefer 12 teams. But the Algarve Cup has lost it's luster over the years(can thank SBC for that). Their formats have become worse, especially with it's 4 groups of 3 teams each, plus reducing everybody to just 3 games(compared to 4 previously) Not trying to take anything anyway from Norway, but think it's odd that their only ranked #13, yet never had to face anybody higher ranked in winning the tourney(but then it goes to show how none serious NT's have taking this tourney, as they often started their reserves instead of their 1st stringers)
I'm surprised no one's commented on the use of the tennis tiebreak system for the order of taking penalties (sometimes called ABBA). It's the first time I've seen it in use for any senior international matches (men or women) and it follows upon word that FIFA abandoned the idea, which I think is a mistake. I wish they would use it at the Women's World Cup in France
I think I like the tennis tie-break system for penalties, in which the last team to take in a round is the first to take in the next round--but I need to think about it a bit longer. Yes, Algarve also suffers for the same reason a lot of friendlies or ersatz friendly tournaments suffer, which is that some teams take the matches seriously and play their starters as much as possible and others are using their reserves a lot, experimenting, etc. And, really, I hate to see coaches who don't play their reserves in friendlies--and USA's Jill Ellis may be the worst: In their 3 She Believes matches, the U.S. starters played nearly all the minutes in three games; there were a number of players who didn't play at all, two who played only the last 9 minutes of the last game, 1 who played most of a game and another who played, like 20 minutes. I think that was it.
Some of the missing videos (including a different take of the Portugal-Iceland one): Still missing: Canada-Sweden and Scotland-Denmark.
A little bit of history made? I meant to post a link earlier to the 3rd place match between Canada and Sweden, which featured the use of the tennis tiebreak system (ABBA). This may have been the first time it's ever been used in a senior national team match, men or women. The PKs (technically KFTM - Kicks From The Mark) begin around 2:52:00 in the video. I don't know how long this video stays posted. The referee, I'm told, is Anne-Marie Keighley of New Zealand https://twitter.com/i/broadcasts/1YqxorRleOvJv