Current Standings Group A 1, Slovakia 1-1-0 [4pts] 2. Austria 1-1-0 [4pts] 3. Ireland 0-1-1 [1pt] 4. Hungary 0-1-1 [1pt] Group B 1. Poland 1-1-0 [4pts] 2. Romania 1-1-0 [4pts] 3. Croatia 0-2-0 [2pts] 4. Northern Ireland 0-0-2 [0pts] Group C 1. Costa Rica 1-1-0 [4pts] 2. France B 1-1-0 [4pts] 3. Wales 0-1-1 [1pt] 4. Bosnia 0-1-1 [1pt]
The region 1 team's physio work for UNC, she is really pretty and a nice person. She arrived a day earlier than the team as they were stranded in London. France U19 beat Hungary U17 6-0 and Slovenia A 6-1. It should be a good game between France U19 and the region 1 team.
11 th place match Northern Ireland 0-0 Bosnia. Bosnia win 5-4 on Pks 9 th place match Costa Rica 1-2 Ireland 7 th place match Hungary 3-1 Romania 5 th place match Croatia 1-1 Wales. Wales win 4-3 on PKs
In a way, it's more like a "C" team, isn't it? Not even the usual backups because of course they're with the full national team in Algarve. I was curious to see how this "B" team did and what, if anything, it means.
Well it is a B team because all those players there dimmed not good enough or not ready for the A team.
i was very curious to see how the France B/C team did and how their performance would be measured using the FIFA ratings of their opponents. Their performance rating for the Istria Cup wound up about 1571 in my quick-and-dirty calculations. Here's how it compares with 7 other teams at the Cup: Austria 1770 Poland 1739 Slovakia 1713 France "B" 1571 Wales 1561 Ireland 1499 Costa Rica 1470 Bosnia 1438 I'm sure French fans are a bit disappointed. I'm sure they'd like their B/C team to be closer to the level of Austria but is that realistic or not?! Meanwhile, that was not a good showing by World Cup-bound Costa Rica, their performance rating well below their official rating of1597. They are, however, missing their best player Shirley Trana Cruz.
Our B team is a young team, they played 2 games in 2014 and 4 in 2015 at the Istria Cup. It is a mix of up and coming players fresh from the U19 team and some older who went to the A team and others who are not ready for the A team. We will have a good idea if they are close to Poland in May as they have a friendly there.
Just re: the whole B/C debate here: It may be splitting hairs, but I think the definition of a "team" here is being played with a bit. I think what France sent here is definitely their B team; it's also definitely their third (and fourth) XI, since the first and second XI make up the A team. Considering that, I don't think their performance is too disappointing - their first XI has about 2100 points in the rankings and arguably should be higher being the hottest XI on the planet right now, but the second XI is more like 1900 (hence the crash against USA in the Algarve final when five first-XI members were out) and so their third XI should be about 1700 - which is almost exactly Austria's current "official" ranking. They performed around 1600 instead of 1700, which is underperforming, but not worryingly so (i.e. the USA performing like a 1900 team for most of 2014 instead of the 2200 they were "officially" at) while Austria slightly overperformed. So France's third XI is still essentially a top-30 team, but being third-stringers, I think expecting them to be top-20-equivalent is too much. Similarly, Costa Rica's performance was also about 100pts less than what might be expected - a bit disappointing, but not worryingly so, especially considering they're missing their best player.
You really can't expect that much from France "B" -- if you can call it even a B team. If the A team can't beat Austria by a better score than 3-1, than you can't really expect the perhaps C team to easily win...
Is really 4 months enough to properly recover for knee surgery? Karina Maruyama had a torn ACL in late september 2011, and barely made it in time to get back (and fit) for Olympics 2012, about 9 months after that...
It is not a major surgery like an ACL repair or any other ligament repair. Just cleaning out some scar tissue. She could've kept playing until the end of the season and had it done then, but decided to get it done now so she is ready for the WWC.
This is not the Istria Cup. The matches involving Slovenia were in Slovenia.. Not sure it was an actual tournament but just a series of friendly matches. Slovenia did not play Hungary U-17, for example, and USA and Hungary U-17 met twice. 4.3 USA Region 1 (U-16/U-17) 1-1 Hungary U-17 6.3 Slovenia 0-1 USA Region 1 (U-16/U-17) 6.3 France U-19 6-0 Hungary U-17 8.3 Slovenia 1-6 France U-19 8.3 USA Region 1 (U-16/U-17) 0-0 Hungary U-17 9.3 France U-19 3-2 USA Region 1 (U-16,U-17)
The France U19 team and the Regional 1 team were in the same hotel as the France B team. The tournament organisation doing the Istria Cup was organising those games freidnly games with France U19, Hungary U17, Slovenia seniors and the US Region 1 team.