Color me mildly (though not stupendously) surprised at all three of these results... NZL is generally a 15-20 team while Austira has been more 20-30; similarly, DPK is usually 5-10 while SUI has been 15-25 (though rising). Neither Wales nor Czech have ever been incredibly high, but I generally expect the British Isles teams (maybe excepting N.Ireland) to be better than east-central Europe teams - I guess that's a bad assumption. Czech, Rep.Ireland, and Wales are all within three ranks of each other after all, now that I look.
Austria have improved in the last two seasons, but I don't think it has reflected in the ranking as I don't think they have beaten any big team yet. But it might happen at the Euros.
Yeah, due to the latency in Elo systems, a team on the rise will have its official rating&ranking lower than what their current effective strength actually is. I'm interested in what effective strength @kolabear would get looking at just the last year or two of Austria's results.
Scotland 0 - 2 Korea Rep. (Ji Soyun 48', Cho So Hyun 74'(p)) Italy 1 - 4 Belgium (Sabatino 10' - Wullaert 11'(p), Van Wynendaele 39', Coutereels 65', Philtjens 81') Ireland 0 - 0 Hungary
I would say Austria's biggest win from a rankings perspective was the 3-0 defeat of Australia a couple years ago. Like Belgium, they have the potential to move up a bit if some teams ahead of them continue to falter (looking at you, Italy).
I've been fortunate enough to see some of Austria's streamed line games, what I love about them is they play a fast paced, direct style game with usually 1 AM(Puntigam) & 3 forwards upfront(Billa, Berger, Feiresenger). That's s sharp contrast then the techno minded, German Bundesliga where just about all the Austrian NT's play in. Haven't seen their lineups for the Cyprus Cup, but I believe their playing without their top defender, Schnaderbeck & also without my fav, their speedy winger, Feiresenger, due to injuries, So it's amazing that they're doing so well as their one problem is they don't go too deep. But this team definitely deserves to be in the top 20
here's a full replay of the Belgium/Italy game. BS members, blissett & gricio usually are in the stands to cheer on Italy, but the stands look completely empty today; bad blissett, bad gricio!
Thanks for keeping us update guys analysing the results, I paid more attention on teams qualified for next Euro, I have to say that I'm very positively surprised by Belgium. The team is very well coached, you can clearly see each players performing with enthusiasm knowing exactly what to do according to her strength and weakness, Wullaert movement are superb for me she's the equivalent of Sinclair for them. I mean an exceptionnal player who knows how to elevate her technically average teammates and more important is willing to do it. For me if they keep that team spirit they could cause problems to many in the Netherlands. Switzerland is not a big surprise, as I said long time ago here is quite suprising that they only managed to qualify to one major tournament so far seeing all the talent they have available. Austria, I personally don't really appreciate their football but it seems to work.....good for them. Scotland is such a crazy team because they actually have very good players in almost every position, enough to not completely be Kim Little dependent, but the way the team will perform on game day is so unpredictable literally anything can happen. Italy very very disappointing, at this point it will be a bigg surprise if they make anything positive at Euro, I just hope if they fail that Cabrini will get fired and the next coach will call back Tatiana Bonetti!
Wow what a terrible tournament for Italy, three resounding losses. Not what you want going into UEFA Euro. New Zealand pretty bad also. Weird how Erceg decided to play in this tournament given her reason for early retirement is differences with NZ Football federation.
11th place Italy 6 - Czech Republic 2 9th place New Zealand 3 - Hungary 1 7th place Belgium 1 - Austria 1(Belgium wins on PKs 3-2) 5th place Scotland 0 - Wales 0(Scotland wins on PKs 6-5) 3rd place North Korea 2 - Ireland 0
Glad to see Italy winning its last game, I don't care for Cabrini but the girls don't deserve that and in the end the players are the ones who feel ashamed when things go very wrong......Anyway, may be il bel Antonio will reconsider his position on Bonetti's case ?.....I just want Tatiana to be there in July.
As everyone here already stated, a very disappointing performance of Italy: I watched the 3 first matches and, expecially vs. Belgium and Switzerland, I saw a midfield without ideas, only long crosses going nowhere, a shaky defense, a lot of individual mistakes (also because, missing at all a scheme of play, the girls tried mostly solo actions); on the top of it, an embarassing fitness lacking, as if the players spent all their energy during the championship (or tried to save some energy for the last part of it...). Ok, Ilaria Mauro and Bartoli wheren't there, Alia Guagni injuried during the first match but come on, you can't give 13 goals so easily ! As I wrote in the past, I am 100% agree with Debzy about Tatiana Bonetti, but I am afraid that she alone can't change the pace of the team, and neither could the change of the coach 4 months before the Euro... Let's only hope that the players, in the month and half between the end of the season here and the start of the Euro, will be able to rest a bit and, soon after, to focus to fix all the shortages and lackings we just saw in Cyprus.
You are absolutely right on Italy lacking any tactical organization in both phase of the game against Belgium I also noticed some quite amateurish mistakes from the defence, evidently Tona hasn't been replaced correctly... I like Salvai, less Linari, both are young, inexperienced on international level but I'm quite not sure they will ever reach the level required...... Talking about Cabrini and his coaching credentials, I see (on wikipedia) he managed four teams before Italy every time getting fired after one season....which by itself is very alarming......he's coaching le Azzure since 2012 but as you righty noticed the team has a very poor tactical organization specially since the veterans left which lead us to believe that he actually was "saved" by the various Panico, Tona, Tuttino, D'Adda all those years.... I'm just sorry for your team because Italy situation strongly reminds me of France under Bruno Bini in so many ways....A poor coach kept for so long by the federation because they could care less about the women's team, players getting blacklisted for petty reason, a man who doesn't want to admit his own mistakes unwilling to make any kind of change.....I just hope it doesn't ends up badly like it did for us.
I can't see how you can blame the NT coach for some of Italy's pitfalls. It's not his fault that his country had failed to spend money or keep up with the rest of Europe in woso. There's not much too choose from; most of the domestic 'serie A, is on par with the German Bundesliga division 2. You can see that in arguably the league's best squad, Brescia; a team who make up half Italy''s starting lineup. got slaughtered in the CL, 1-8 in one game by Turbine Potsdam a few years back(and that was despite having the Swiss excellent GK at the helm). You can easily see that in some of their players that are over in Germany; two of the NT squad's GK's are subs in the Bundesliga's with virtually no playing time to their credit. Look at the current series A tied leading goal scorers; Clelland, who's got to play a whole 34 minutes in her Scott's Euro qualifiers campaign & Mauro; she scored 2 goals for the whole season when playing for Potsdam, was able to have great previous season though with 22 goals, but that was in BULI division 2. If only the Italian's men's clubs would get off their high horses, take over & spend a little money on the women's clubs, I think you'll see a remarkable change ala/on par what happened with England's rise. Until that happens, the only short term solution for Italy's NT is to try and recruit players from around the world with Italian heritage in them. My pick; Vanessa D'Bernadino is one of the best mids around, recently played at the NWSL/Chicago Red Stars & Adeleide United. She's played for the US u23, but that still makes her available for seniors as her brief bio states Vanessa DiBernardo - Wikipedia another would be teamie at the Red Stars, Daniella Colaprico, who also made the u23 squad but as of yet has never been capped by Ellis senior team Danielle Colaprico - Wikipedia it would be crazy if Italy doesn't at least try to make a bit & try ti get them over before it's too late!
Have you ever heard of Tatiana Bonetti?......I guess no....I'm not surprised... Actually the best team in the league is arguably Fiorentina, female section of the male pro club.......But you're right on an eventual remarkable raise of Italy if the federation do the right thing like England did when they fired someone only able at blacklisting talented players (Hope Powell....Cabrini...) and replace him with a true professional (Sampson).....
Hotjam, I think you made a bit of confusion: It wasn't Brescia to have been slaughtered 8-0 by TP a few years ago, it was Torres (that then had Thalmann as a GK); Brescia played vs. OL and Wolfsburg in the past years. Anyway, IMO one of the problems of the italian club teams at international level is the short roster: you can win a national championship with 13-15 first tier players, and the remaining coming from the younger team or without experience, but you can't go through the CL if you haven't at least 18-20 players of the same level...but if a club signs such a number of good italian players and doesn't give playing time to some of them, after a few months you see those girls going to another club, may be less important, to be put in the starting eleven. This mainly because the girls play for the joy of playing (not for the few hundred Euros of "reimboursement"), and where is the joy if you sit in the bench all the time ? And the same applies for the foreign players.... About the dual citizenship players and the NT you are right in general, and as I wrote in the past, at young level is already happening, although with girls living in Europe. I have heard both of Colaprico and Di Bernardo, they are excellent players but I don't know if they would accept a possible call if they still have even a small chance to be in the USWNT; for the younger girls, I think that the different timing in school commitments here and in USA is a big restraint, considering that camps and Euro U19 and U17 matches take at least 40-50 days in a season. Anyway, it's an interesting topic and it's good to share different views and different opinions...