Duggan didn't even start in Man City's CL games vs Lyon if you look at the 5 top English scores in last year's WPL, none of them made Sampson's squad! http://us.women.soccerway.com/national/england/wsl/2016/regular-season/r34382/
Much like Sampson you are missing the point. Fitness for football can, and should, be achieved by playing football....NOT by running laps....NOT by doing 'fitness training' without the ball...The 'fitness' is incorporated into football related games during practice. I coach a small local private high school girl's team.......we are 4 time defending State Champions.....we are the last team to beat, in regulation time, the current 6A State Champions (and did so at their place)....my seniors recently graduated having never lost a single conference game in 4 years (44 games)....we have not run one single lap ever.....never done a single day of 'fitness training'.....rarely do 'drills....we do EVERYTHING with the ball. The over emphasize on 'fitness training' at all levels of the youth game in the USA is just wrong.....Sampson did the same thing with this England team and it showed in the way they played.....today it caught up with them and all the 'fitness' in the world couldn't save them.....
Interesting. Five of six of last year's nwsl scoring leaders aren't on the current USA squad, either. Of course, there was the pesky qualifiers and Olympics that kept the national team starters off the field.
Exactly the approach the Brazil women take to fitness. How'd that work out for them? Bayern Munich came to Portland to train after the last World Cup In preparation for the MLS all star game and I got to see them train on Merlo field. I wanted to see how an elite team trains. all but a couple of the WC players who came late trained hard, ran laps, ran sprints, did drills, and quite often without the ball.
Well, none of last year's leaders except Press is a leader this year. She's on the team and started the three goal rally. Macdonald is now a defender, Ohai is out for the season, Groom has one goal, Melis isn't in the top10 in either goals or assists, and either is Edmonds. Huerta was a leader, but she isn't eligible yet for the USWNT. So, the leader list from last year can be pretty much defended as irrelevant. Does that answer your question?
Yeah, it seems that England came close but it just wasn't their day. Anyway, congratulations to the Dutch. Sure the home field advantage helped. Lots of fans to cheer them on but they've been good in this tournament. I especially enjoy Martens. I do like my creative players. Today England had so many chances but it just didn't go in for them.
I imagine the 'Clive' in your screen name refers to Clive Charles...? I played against Clive in the original NASL back in the day.....good man. Much like the Bayern players you witnessed, I encourage my girls to do all the running they want....on their own time. Personally we do NOT waste valuable practice time on mindless running....seems to have worked out ok so far.....I am pretty sure Clive Charles would agree we this approach....May God rest his soul.
Congratulation Netherlands! Is fair to say the best team won but despite the large result it was closer than many thought but details made the difference...as usual at this level.... I wrote it yesterday England is a very solid block but has some weakness which an excellent tactician could really take advantage of, as Sarine Wiegman did...The first one is their left defensive side, the weakest in a very solid defense, indeed Holland beautiful first goal came from a cross from that side. The second is their aforementioned inability to build-up plays or keep the ball, which give you the opportunity to continuously come at them bt Wiegman.did something which imho very few notice and made the Netherlands win the game. Jodie Taylor is certainly the best striker of the competition, she's in the best form of her career and made the difference so far but despite being a complete striker...always loved her... her goals with England are quite similar...due to Mark Sampson's tactics...They use her notable mix of speed and power nothing else. The Dutch had to find a way to nullify her main strenght and they brilliantly found it with the two center backs Van der Gragt and the impressive Dekker who are even more powerful than Jodie but definitely way slower... so they had to figure out a way to prevent Taylor to go behind them...Usualy they played with a high defensive line in order to facilitate the plays/passing between the different sector but Wiegman rightly thought it was too risky against an aggressive ball winning team like England with a pacey player like Taylor upfront...it is the big diffence between them winnig today and French losing Sunday.. Wiegman rightly figure out that with two slow centre backs against a fast strike, the most appropriate defense is the deep defensive line which would have cut the space behind the CB. England being a strict aggressive, counter-attacking team not using the wings, was forced to attack with long balls or hope in Lucy Bronze's slamloming penetration... Dutch deep defensive line considerably limitated England's option while didn't create problem to team dynamics as Van de Donk and Groenen technical abilities allowed them to run the show while the English were also sitting deep in order to not give space to Dutch wingers ...I give Sandra Wiegman a 10/10 for that genius tactical move. For individuals of course Jackie Groenen was the best player in the game, for me she's arguably the MVP or the Euro, the Netherlands have to really thank FIFA for not letting her join Belgium. But I'd like to underline the performance of Van de Donk and Martens also....What Lieke did today is very difficult because is mentally extremely challenging, basically she was nullified by Bronze all game long but as usual a striker always have chance even against the best of the defender...and Lucy is.....that chance came at minute 93 for Lieke and she was ready!.....Impressive demonstration of focus. So congratulations Netherlands you are the best team in Europe now go get that trophy you deserve it!
Netherlands are looking too good right now, even for Denmark. This will be the first time a host country has won a major tournament in women's football, since Germany won the 2001 Euro tournament. 1996 - USA won as Host (Olympics) 1999 - USA won as Host (World Cup) 2001 - Germany won as Host (Euro) It's been 16 years. Congrats to the Dutch Girls.
Does anyone have any footage of this tournament? ............ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1969_European_Competition_for_Women's_Football
I would also guess your have a fairly high level of natural skill. To contrast you, when I was in high school my (male) team was moderate with skill, so our coach had us do huge amounts of fitness training. Paid off, for the most part. We beat several teams who should have beaten us skill for skill. That was until we came up against one of the best teams in the state (and as it happened, they were also nationally ranked at that time). (And by contrast to that, the female team when I was in high school were among the best in the state, and did not do a lot fitness training, probably because they were so skilled.) The team I saw for England today was lower on skill relative to Netherlands. Fitness does well for a while, but then it overshadowed. There is a combination necessary, to me, particularly if the players one has are not high skill. I'm not greatly familiar with England, but today, they did not look like a highly skilled team. And if that is the actuality, they needed fitness.
The way they are playing, there is no way they can possibly lose. The odds of Denmark winning this game are even less than Colombia over France in 2015. All Netherlands has to do, is just show up.
What? She's played as a defender for a grand total of 45 minutes. McDonald is a forward. And she's missed time with a hamstring injury.
Fine. And she isn't in the scoring rankings this year. So how does the fact that she was top 5 in the league last year matter? Last year the national team players missed more than half the season.
Don't act like there's a 'Movement Hex' that can cause a team to lose just from a magic spell that is cast. Especially a magic spell online. That isn't possible. Dutch have this game and there will be bucket loads of orange confetti everywhere on the pitch.
Anyway, your way of counting the chickens before they're hatched makes me uncomfortable! it's like when, a few days ago, you were saying that right now Nadeshiko Japan was top of the world! See what happened.
I hear ya. I also said North Korea was not going to beat Japan in the Final at last year's U-17 WWC. Guess I got one wrong there. It happens.
I had actually watched that tournament... and I had to Google Piechnik anyway. Then I remembered that he had replaced that player whose knee had cracked in that horrible graphic way during the semifinal... And I also remembered that Denmark won that tournament by playing the "wrong" Laudrup!!! Ok, please, Dutches girl, now go out and right that wrong!