Also, IF the U.S. were to make it to the semis, they would have at least one day less rest in every single knockout match.
Yup. The funny thing is that Spain will have 3 more days rest than the U.S. and I bet we will look fresher by the 75th minute.
I was surprised how well Ellis paced her team vs Sweden, it's like damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead for about the first 15 min. of each half(which got them immediate goals), then switched to a more casual pace mostly passing the ball for the rest of the 30 min(thus conserving some enery). But that tactic will change dramtically if the team is scored upon first. Just was wondering; since Ertz didn't play & 4-3-3 looking good, with all 3 mids(;Mewis, Horan & Lavelle looking so solid, what postion or who would she replace, once Ertz starts agan?
Approximate expected odds of advancing: Germany (2018/19 performance rating 2108) odds of advancing slightly less than (.841) over Nigeria (adjusted perf rating 1818)* Norway (performance rating 1948) a very slight advantage - less than (.549) odds of advancing over Australia (performance rating 1914) * I'm using performance ratings since 1/1/2018 instead of the official FIFA ratings for these two matches. African nations in the World CUp tend to be underrated because of the well-known problem that African teams rarely play outside their confederation, making calibration between their teams and the rest of the world very difficult to measure. For Nigeria, I'm only counting matches they played against non-African teams. Fortunately, since qualifying for the World Cup, they've played a few games against non-African teams, enough to get some reasonable measure of their strength relative to most of the world. Heading into the World Cup, their performance rating against non-African teams was 1721. Including the World Cup matches, this rating jumps to 1818, which may easily be a bit high. But somewhere around 1721 to 1818 seems a better measure than Nigeria's official rating of 1599. I used performance ratings for Norway vs Australia, too, to illustrate Australia's recent struggles in the last year plus which haven't been reflected much in their official ratings. Using the official ratings, Australia (2003) has a 88-point advantage over Norway (1915) and their odds of advancing are a little less than (.624). A close matchup either way but I personally think it's a virtual toss-up. Of course, the injury to Caroline Graham Hansen could be a factor even if she winds up playing.
Yes every match is UEFA versus a non-UEFA. On the US side of the draw are 3 of the 4 favourites, and 4 of the top 6 FIFA rankings. Every group winner except the USA is from UEFA. Every single UEFA team but Scotland is through, and they were hosed. It should be all of them. Throw out wildcards and the only confederations with teams going through are UEFA, CONCACAF and AFC. Similar to the first two World Cups in 1991 and 1995. Until the pool was widened to 24 teams in 2015, Brazil was the only team to break their oligopoly on the knockout stage. Has anything changed in 30 years? Or is it just the addition of teams making it appear so?
I think the MWC is a good comparison here. Sure, due to colonization football in the early days were South America and Europe. And that was the case all the way through the 1986 WC. Then in 1990 this scrappy, but fun, team from Cameroon showed up and nearly made the Semi-finals. Fluke or not? FIFA saw that it was not, that the talent pool around the world was increasing. In 1994 we saw Saudia Arabia, the US, and Nigeria advance to the round of 16. But they stopped there. It was worse in 1998, the first tournament to expand to 32 teams. But then there was 2002 with Turkey (okay, technically UEFA) and South Korea making the semifinals. The US and Senegal made the quarterfinals as well. In 2006 it went back to status quo, but it was the new status quo which had non European and South American teams advancing to the round of 16. In 2010, Ghana lost in the quarters on PKs. Same for Costa Rica in 2014. 2018 nearly reverted back to the pre-1990 status quo, apart from Japan. Does that mean we are doomed? That is not what history tells us. But the biggest change was that teams which had not been successful long periods, if ever, showed up. Belgium and Croatia in 2018. Uruguay for the past 2 or 3. Portugal before them re-emerged as well (remember that epic semifinal v. France in 2006?). All of this points to growth, over all. Some, obviously due to expanding leagues and money. But the WC is also a recruiting ground for unknown or lesser known players. In that regard, the women's game is similar to the men's in that expanding it will allow for individual talents who are relatively unknown to get more exposure. Clearly some players from Nigeria, South Africa, Argentina, and Jamaica will get noticed. I would not be surprised if Schneider and Plummer of Jamaica become professionals. Of Argentina, I'm sure Bonsegundo will get picked up and Cometti has a possibility to move to a bigger team. And those are just off the top of my head. But when we look at the confederations, that really does a disservice to the individual countries. For men, Spain had done very little since 1982, but then 2010. Brasil have been gods, but were pretty unimpressive nothing between 1974 and 1990 at which point Argentina made their mark. The point is that teams (countries) ebb and flow. For the men, in the post war era, there has really only been one consistency, that being (West) Germany. The same can be said for women's football, in that a single consistency is the US. Apart from that, it ebbs and flows. Norway stepped up, then faded. China then appeared and faded a bit. Germany has been pretty consistent since 2003, but where were they in 2011? Japan made their presence felt in 2011 and 2015, but will they advance v. Netherlands this time? We'll see. And let me not forget Brasil. All of this is to indicate that there are variances within the overall, and I think expansion to 32 teams is a good thing. But I also hope it means the expansion of the women's professional game as well.
To be fair, Europe was heavily favored in three of the four matches played so far, and the fourth was essentially expected as a toss-up. The second half of the R16 should be more even.
one thing that's missing at this WC is the lack of big stars(now that Kerr & Marta have been eliminated) to go along with some of the best of the world not being here to begin with(Hegerberg, Pajor, Harder, Vero, Fishlock, Katoto, for various reasons). It's hard to pick who's going to be the MVP of the tourney now; Endler been eliminated. Bonasera/Italy might go out by the quarters. But then usually that honor goes to whoever has the great finals game anyways!
Canada is favorite right? So it should be 4-2 by the end of the day (Sweden may win). But tomorrow, Europe may win both. So after this round, it could possibly be the USA vs Europe. Looking at wiki, the USA has always finished top 3, but the only time that 3 out of the top 4 have been European was the first WC in 1991 (that was not originally called the WC if I remember correctly). This year, could be the first time since then that Europe holds 3 (or 4) of the semifinal spots. And just like that Spain scores the first goal allowed by the USA, so maybe it will be all UEFA after all.
Both France and USA given tough tests in the R16 matches. USA looked uncharacteristically tired by the end of their match today. USA are usually the ones to tire their opponents out... France are a lot like Spain, just slightly better in most areas of the game, though they've now played an extra 30 minutes. We'll see if that AET matters more than the extra day of rest or not.
From my personal experience the extra 24h look better but I am not sure what World Cups' tradition says instead.
I don’t care what the circumstances are I always like some funny salty tweets best two teams? best two swimmers #ESPUSA pic.twitter.com/JhZTfRIdR3— noe 🏹 (@expectationsfcb) June 24, 2019 1143219414864728065 is not a valid tweet id We are now going live to the VAR room... #ESPUSA pic.twitter.com/pIZAVwrCgL— Manuel Veth (@ManuelVeth) June 24, 2019