2015 FIFA WOMEN'S WORLD CUP - GENERAL INFO

Discussion in 'USA Women: News and Analysis' started by MRAD12, Jun 2, 2015.

  1. Cliveworshipper

    Cliveworshipper Member+

    Dec 3, 2006
  2. South American

    Aug 3, 2008
    MRAD..nice report, but I would have liked to hear a little about what you saw live in comparison to what most of us saw on TV game wise. Was there anything different than what you have already read from previous threads. I have been to many live events and there is always a little different take than seeing it on TV.
     
  3. jackdoggy

    jackdoggy Member+

    May 16, 2014
    Big D
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    MRAD - Wish I could have shared a beer with you in Winnipeg.....(based on my intake, I probably did and just didn't know it:D:D:D)
    Great Onsite Analysis - I'll add a few things

    Nice people -
    For 30 years, whenever I go to a Resort for R-n-R, I actively seek out Canadians cuz they are fun to party with. However, once inside the Soccer Stadium, roughly 10% of them turn into red-eyed, fire-breathing, blood dripping from their teeth fanatics who hate, Hate, HATE the USWNT, their families, their friends, and especially their fans. I guess 30+ years of L's will do that to you...hehehehehhehehehe
    Stadium - Perfect size, what 31-32K. A lot of my sports viewing experiences have been either with 18K or 50K and up. Don't forget about the long long lines for the water fountains - - caused by wonderful human beings filling up 2 gallon jugs:rolleyes:. One of the few athletic events I've attended where the shortest (nonexistent) lines were for beer and the restrooms. I opted for the FIFA Shuttle bus service and it worked out well.
    US fans are the Best - I knew we would bring it....but my words can not describe the sheer magnitude. All ages, shapes and sizes. No shocker that a lot of fans were from the Great Lakes region, look at a map - - and, of course, a shout out to my fellow Texans in attendance.
     
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  4. jackdoggy

    jackdoggy Member+

    May 16, 2014
    Big D
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    A couple questions about officials:
    Where does the implementation of the 2 additional "Goal-line" officials stand in Int. soccer? FIFA deemed not necessary with Goal line technology?
    Is it like the 14th or 15th Commandment that only female officials can ref the WWC?
     
  5. lil_one

    lil_one Member+

    Nov 26, 2013
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    AAR's are only used in UEFA competitions, I think.

    I believe exclusively female referees have been used in the WWC since 1999. Male referees have numerous opportunities to referee at a high level; female referees' opportunities are much fewer. In some confederations, they only have limited opportunities to referee at all. Until confederations and federations provide more opportunities for high-level games and thus high-level refereeing, we will continue to see a few relatively inexperienced (or at least inexperienced at this level) referees at the WWC.

    Its sort of the same catch-22 that you have with "weaker" teams at the WWC. You want to see good refereeing at the WWC, but you also want to continue to develop female refereeing. I categorize any poor refereeing the same way I do blow-out scores, like the GER-CIV game: its all growing pains for woso.
     
  6. jackdoggy

    jackdoggy Member+

    May 16, 2014
    Big D
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    #31 jackdoggy, Jun 18, 2015
    Last edited: Jun 18, 2015
    Thurs 700 p.m. Central Time. Fox Sports 2 DISH Channel 397 is replaying all 3 USA group matches.
     
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  7. BlueCrimson

    BlueCrimson Member+

    North Carolina Courage
    United States
    Nov 21, 2012
    Cincinnati, Ohio
    Club:
    Sydney FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I can relate to the dead bugs, MRAD. It was horrible. At least you didn't stay long enough to get driven insane by the rampant mosquitos. I went through 2 bottles of bug spray in the few days I was in Winnipeg.
     
  8. Cliveworshipper

    Cliveworshipper Member+

    Dec 3, 2006

    Important tip.

    Spray the whole front of your car with RainX. Makes getting them off much easier.

    They also make a windshield washer fluid for the purpose.

    We now return you to regularly scheduled posts.
     
    exref repped this.
  9. mamalia

    mamalia Member

    Apr 26, 2001
    Cincinnati OH US
    FYP :D
     
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  10. Blaze20

    Blaze20 Moderator
    Staff Member

    Seattle Reign FC
    Sep 22, 2009
    Club:
    Philadelphia Independence
    Great report and I concur with everything! I'm sad I didn't discover this thread earlier as it would have been nice to meet up as I was at both the monday and friday games.

    Just to elaborate on what you said and share my experiences. For most Americans that were in Winnipeg, the consensus was, nice people terrible city.

    The Good
    - As Mrad said, the people of Winnipeg were very pleasant and helpful. You can imagine how stressful it could be if 32,000 loud Americans descended on your small city. However, everyone we encountered were patient and nice.
    - Inside the stadium was the best experience (if you weren't trying to buy a souvenir). There were virtually no line to enter, concession lines where very short if you were smart about it (meaning not at half time) and no lines in the bathroom and it was really clean. The stadium also really had no bad seat and even though I was on the 200 level, they were still great seats. Having the Nigerian cheering section playing all game really added to the atmosphere.

    The Bad
    - The world cup spirit was absent in the city. On my first day in Winnipeg, I decided to take a stroll in the city and was flabbergasted by how dead it was. I'm not asking for dancing clowns in the streets but the least you can expect is some excitement about the occasion. There were barely any banners and the few that where there was so small and high up that you had to be explicitly looking for them to see it. Other than that, there was nothing else indicating that a world event was taking place.

    - Outside the stadium atmosphere was dead, dead, dead. Quite frankly I have seen more action at my local NWSL games than at this stadium. The stadium is located somewhat in the suburbs and if you weren't exactly looking for it, there is no way you would have known the world cup was taking place there. Absolutely nothing was happening. There were barely any banners passed the stadium parameters, next to no fan zone, just generally dead. The organizing committee deserves an F.

    - Nothing to do. For those of us that spent the entire week in Winnipeg, the biggest issue was finding something to do on non game days. This is further emphasize by the fact that the sun doesn't set till like 10:30 pm. So you wake up like 6 and have literally 16 hours to kill. There's only so much sitting in dark bars and watching soccer that one could take. Now there's not much a city can do if they don't have that many tourist attractions. However, there are ways to get around that. What about organizing daily soccer festivals where you sell souvenirs, have mini-soccer tournaments with the winner being upgraded to VIP seating for a game. Bars could have world cup specials on their drinks. Like rename all your drinks after the players and hack up the price or something. Just try anything to keep up the spirit of the world cup.
    - For me it came down to general disappointment that the opportunity to host a world cup was being wasted. I don't under why local businesses did not take advantage of the fact that the will be 30,000 Americans in your city for a week and most of them will have disposable income. I don't understand why a city will agree to host the world cup but do NOTHING to boost the city so that people might return. The city of Winnipeg did nothing to promote the game. If the USA wasn't playing in Winnipeg, I doubt if the attendance at games would have gotten to 5,000. I'm guessing they were banking on the US fans filling the stadium but that still doesn't explain why many Canadians I came across had no idea the world cup was taking place. For those that we met in the bars, they where more interested in baseball or hockey. If the point was to depend on US fans to attend, then maybe Minnesota should have hosted and saved the lot of us the travel time.
    - Another example was on wednesday when the USMNT played Germany. That was an off day so literally everyone was looking forward to that game. There was not 1 bar in the city that could show the game. We went to 4 different bars and they said they didn't have the channel. The only bar that was showing the game was the one closer to the stadium which the AO use to host their the pre and post game activities. They however had to turn people away because it was too crowded.

    I could go on and on but I think I'm done for now. Though one thought I always had was why everything was so dusty?
     
  11. mamalia

    mamalia Member

    Apr 26, 2001
    Cincinnati OH US
    Thanks, Blaze and MRAD for the detailed write-ups of your experiences. Really fun to read. Because of family commitments, I wasn't able to think about travel for the group stages, so we are heading to Montreal for QF and SF. I have seen lots of negative remarks about the Olympic Stadium environment... I hope that since we are attending KO games, they will be well-attended and there will be some palpable atmosphere and excitement. At least I know there is plenty of great stuff to see and do in Montreal on my off days.

    Re: the souvenir woes, that is sad that people didn't have a chance to buy and that selection was not too great. I went to the 1999 WC opener at Giant Stadium. They were selling drinks in big souvenir cups. We didn't buy any, but at the end of the doubleheader, people just left tons of these lying around in the stadium, we snagged a bunch, rinsed them out in the bathroom and brought them home... still used at times at our house, and always bring a smile for the great memory.

    If you are thinking of buying merch, rather than go to FIFA online store, I wanted to say think about ordering from Jen Cooper's store - www.soccer4all.com. She does a ton to try and help grow the women's game and maybe she has something that would be a good souvenir.
     
  12. MRAD12

    MRAD12 Member+

    Jun 10, 2004
    Chicago
    Club:
    Chicago Fire
    Blaze20, I agree with what you said. I was amazed myself at the lack of excitement and fanfare around the stadium. As I said above, if it weren't for the Nigerian band, it would be totally dead around the stadium.

    For me, the stadium itself was good. Awesome acoustics inside the stadium They played very cool music over the stadium loudspeakers. Anytime I can hear some Bob Marley on great sounding speakers is cool with me.

    For me, the biggest disappointment was waiting in the long line for the "FIFA" souvenirs. Two and a half hours for me for a hat. Ridiculous!

    It would have been fun to meet up. I had my Chicago Red Stars blue hat on with blue shorts.

    Anyone going to Vancouver in a couple of weeks?
     
  13. McSkillz

    McSkillz Member+

    ANGEL CITY FC, UCLA BRUINS
    United States
    Nov 22, 2014
    Los Angeles
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Can anybody provide a simple explanation as to how certain 3rd place group teams were selected for the Round of 16? Why were Nigeria and Thailand rejected?
     
  14. Blaze20

    Blaze20 Moderator
    Staff Member

    Seattle Reign FC
    Sep 22, 2009
    Club:
    Philadelphia Independence
    Here the waiting line was a problem. When I entered the stadium that first day I was concerned what was going on. The line basically looped around the entire stadium and from what little I could see, the weren't really that many options to chose from anyway. All of that could have been solved if they had more store options around the stadium or even in the city.
     
  15. BlueCrimson

    BlueCrimson Member+

    North Carolina Courage
    United States
    Nov 21, 2012
    Cincinnati, Ohio
    Club:
    Sydney FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    There wasn't really that much to do in the actual city, so we spent a lot of time hiking in the campgrounds we were staying at. Camping for the week was much cheaper than staying at a hotel. But there was also some exploration of the downtown areas- nothing was there that couldn't be found in most cities in the US.
     
  16. BlueCrimson

    BlueCrimson Member+

    North Carolina Courage
    United States
    Nov 21, 2012
    Cincinnati, Ohio
    Club:
    Sydney FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Nigeria finished 4th, so they were out anyway. But the first tiebreaker is points, then GD, then goals scored. Colombia and the Netherlands went through on points, and Switzerland and Sweden went through on GD.
     
  17. Dom. FC

    Dom. FC Member+

    May 10, 2004
    Central US
    #42 Dom. FC, Jun 19, 2015
    Last edited: Jun 19, 2015
    A good write up and I concur mostly, we stayed from the Winnipeg opening matches through the Germany and China matches so we were there a total of 8 days and 8 nights w/ 5 non-match days (we left instead of staying for the Japan match on the 9th day - no regrets). Whenever we travel I spend a lot of time researching and planning which I find is part of the fun/anticipation. Having done that I knew Winnipeg wasn't going to 'fill' 5 days so we planned 3 one-day road trips to Riding Mountain National Park (+/- 3 hours northwest), Gimli & Hecla Island Provincial Park (+/- 2 hours north), and Whiteshell Provincial Park & Kenora on Lake of the Woods (+/- 2.5 hours east). Tons of driving and literal pounds of bugs but we saw things, learned things, and passed the time. We also spent time at the Forks, enjoyed the Human Rights Museum, ate at the roof top revolving Prairie 360 restaurant (during a very heavy rainstorm which we watched come in and then literally close the visual 'curtains' it was cool), walked around a lot, shopped quite a bit at places we don't have at home e.g. IKEA & Canadian chain stores, and tried to get immersed a little in the French culture of Saint Boniface and French radio stations etc. We found fun and interesting things to do but didn't use our last tickets because it was just one (weak) match and we were completely out of ideas for other things to do ... we were 'done and dusted' w/ Winnipeg.
    From the 'inside Winnipeg' aspects of newspaper articles and radio programs Winnipeg seemed to claim they wanted to do more but FIFA kind of wouldn't let them (they 'own' the name etc.) and FIFA claimed they wanted to have a successful event but didn't want to compete with the other events like the Pride thingie and the jazz festival. My take was they both knew they didn't really have to do anything ... they had us as captives and FIFA, hotels, restaurants, bars, and stores were all going to benefit w/o additional expenditures to make an 'event' for us. I would revisit Winnipeg but only on the way to a longer stay at one or more of the regional parks we visited or fly-in places further north.
    After seeing what was going on with the merchandise store line the first match day we looked up some of the same stuff (plush mascot etc.) at soccer.com and it was cheaper now and will get discounted as soon as the WC is over so no regrets there. We did buy a mini soccer ball with all the countries' flags at the Human Rights Museum and a FIFA Women's World Cup shirt for my wife at the Canadian Tiger Discount store (FIFA licensed and the nicer non-cotton fabric for $18 Canadian -- but nothing for men).
    Winnipeg seemed to have a lot of contrast economically and seemed to be maybe a little overextended with 'new' stuff and maybe one downturn from serious problems. Infrastructure seemed 'troubled' in places and growth seemed to be sprawling and somewhat disjointed (much like a lot of our cities in fairness). Traffic was mostly light, parking was good everywhere but the stadium (a 'screw' there at $20) and as has been mentioned people were very nice and Canadian stereotype friendly. Prices were very reasonable but there seemed to be double sales taxes (two categories). When I was reconciling my debit card it was fun seeing $40 meal or fuel charges in CA$ as +/- $33 in our currency. Much of the 'what-else-is-there-to-do' may have been about as bad in Denver, Omaha, or Kansas City, (the most familiar similar-sized, mid-continent, cities for my frame of reference) so giving Winnipeg a failing grade may be a bit unfair?
     
  18. Blaze20

    Blaze20 Moderator
    Staff Member

    Seattle Reign FC
    Sep 22, 2009
    Club:
    Philadelphia Independence
    Well as I said there's not much to do in that regard which is why they could have gone the extra mile and organize other events in the city. FIFA/Winnipeg claiming they didn't want to compete with pride or the jazz festival is a cop out because those didn't start until the weekend which by then most of the crowds would have been gone as the US matches were completed.
    And yeah we did explore the city like going to the Forks (for adults spending more than 2 hours there is a stretch), Whiteshell Park, we went to the Bison prairie only to get invaded by bugs, and generally just did a ton of walking. That mostly though can realistically fill 1-2 days
     
  19. MRAD12

    MRAD12 Member+

    Jun 10, 2004
    Chicago
    Club:
    Chicago Fire
    OMG, the bugs!
    I have never seen so many dead bugs on a windshield, front spoiler, and grill of my car as I did driving through ND, Manitoba!
     
  20. Gilmoy

    Gilmoy Member+

    Jun 14, 2005
    Pullman, Washington
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Bugs in Canada are deeply entrenched in Earth's ecosystem, over geological timescales sufficient for animals to evolve to exploit each other. Since the Ice Age, every spring:
    • New grass shoots sprout through melting snow
    • Caribou streams come south to graze
    • Mosquitoes, "knowing" this, time their egg-laying so their hatchlings feed on caribou blood
    • Waterfowl (ducks, geese), "knowing" that, time their migrations so their ducklings feed on mosquito larvae
    • Wolves chase caribou
    Corollary: This is basically why big waterfowl all migrate north for the spring. Weigh a new-born gosling (several oz), and then weigh the flight-capable half-yearling young goose (several lb). Subtract one from the other, and divide by the weight of one mosquito larva. That's a lot of mosquitoes. Every goose that poops on your lawn went through that. Alas ...
    • Mosquitoes, "knowing" this, simply overproduce larva, so that 10% casualties is nothing.
    Caribou and the surviving mosquitoes exhibit Brownian pressure: hunger lures caribou south, irritation drives them north. (Asimov showed that the solution is the isoline along which these two pressures are in equilibrium :D) Every spring, the caribou stay south as long as they can tolerate it, and finally flee northward. Ultimately, caribou eke out a profit in mass gain: for every kg of meat they add, they pay a few% blood tax (and a few% wolf tax, but they can discard their benchwarmers this way ;))

    So summer arrives in Canada, and ... an entire generation of mosquitoes has nothing more to do, bored out of their tiny minds. And then ... Yanks arrive :D
    • Yanks, not caring about any of this, overstock body fat, so that 5% mass loss is nothing :oops:
     
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  21. Smallchief

    Smallchief Member+

    Oct 27, 2012
    Club:
    --other--
    #46 Smallchief, Jun 19, 2015
    Last edited: Jun 19, 2015
    Profound, dude!

    I wonder: what does Megan Rapinoe think about this?
     
  22. Gilmoy

    Gilmoy Member+

    Jun 14, 2005
    Pullman, Washington
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Rapinoe is an atypical American ... who carries her six-pack under her shirt :giggle:
     
  23. Dom. FC

    Dom. FC Member+

    May 10, 2004
    Central US
    I didn't mean that I bought their mutual excuse making, I just noted them from local print and talk radio, their CIA-esque 'plausible deniability' so to speak. There were about 12" - 18" diameter window clings at several locations, sort of like they asked 'What is the very least we could do and still say we did something?' and then they had a 100 of those made for hotels and restaurants etc. Probably the saddest example was a sporting goods store with Women's World Cup advertised on their marquee and a couple team Canada shirts and hats along with a significant rack of men's replica stuff from last year that had been stored away until now - most ironic were the numerous Italian jerseys and track tops -- which WWC group were they in?
     
  24. MRAD12

    MRAD12 Member+

    Jun 10, 2004
    Chicago
    Club:
    Chicago Fire
    A little interview from Tom Sermanni and a few comments of what he was planning to do with the USWNT
    ...including connecting with former players like the 99ers. Wow! What a great idea. Instead of shunning some of our former greats, let's get them involved. Oh wait, I don't think Jill and April and probably Abby and Hope think that's a good idea. Sermanni had to go.

    http://www.si.com/planet-futbol/2015/06/21/fifa-womens-world-cup-tom-sermanni-canada-uswnt
     
  25. goussoccer

    goussoccer Member+

    May 23, 2001
    Avon, CT
    taosjohn, sorry to hear about the medical issues. I do hope you have found StubHub though -- you can sell tickets there. I accidently bought tickets to last nights game when I thought I was buying for this Friday. Sold them on StubHub within a day of putting them up (I lost money on the deal, but getting back 70% was better than 0%).
     

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