FAU Stadium, Boca Raton, FL 7:30 PM EST ESPN3 & WatchESPN First matchup of these two teams since the WC Semifinal. Here's hoping Germany gets K.O.'d again.
I will be very curious to see if Ellis makes any adjustments after the France game. This would be a good time to see if a few tweaks results in a better performance than the France outing. My gut is that she will change nothing and that is too bad because I don' think we have the best combination on the field to start right now
This is what the top two women's teams in the world will play on tomorrow night #SheBelieves #EqualMeansEqual pic.twitter.com/RjCZOoiD0t— Hope Solo (@hopesolo) March 9, 2016
Too slow... (after posting the tweet, I realized it didn't show Hope's tweet in side the tweet like it does on the twitter website, so I changed it to just Hope's tweet. And yes, Jennifer Gordon is a journalist)
Thanks, I did a Jennifer Gordon search and found a multitude of people named "Jennifer Gordon" with very different occupations.
Do these stadiums even employ groundskeepers? That photo in Hope Solo's tweet looks wretched. Nissan Stadium (France game) wasn't great either. Part of the problem I think is playing in NFL/college football stadiums. The quality of grass is less important to American football, since the game is primarily played in the air. Not sure why U.S. Soccer is set on scheduling games in these giant venues. Crowds have been good, but they don't come close to filling these stadiums. Why not use soccer-specific MLS stadiums?
My question would be was the surface checked as USSoccer promised it always does except for Hawaii and if it was why wasnt something done since it was checked to improve conditions?
Because the USWNT is required by law to play at least 3 games per year in Florida, and there are no soccer specific MLS stadiums in Florida (yet). Seriously, though, the problem is that the grass in these football stadiums are still recovering from a long, hard winter. They'll be in better shape by the summer. (Oh, and MLS stadiums aren't all in perfect shape right now, either. Most of them weren't built with things like undersoil heating to keep the grass growing in winter.)
The running backs and linemen fighting in the trenches would probably disagree, although the grass does get beat up a lot in NFL stadiums. However, at this point in the season it should be better than that. Also, that photo might only be a specific part of the pitch. I'd like to see the whole pitch before being too critical. Speaking of seeing the whole pitch ---> Only 13 hours to go! Who usually says? "It's going to be glorious!" Well, it is!
Some very loud part of me thinks Jill Ellis is going to pull a major troll job & not start (or even bench all together) Carli Lloyd against Germany. I'm more interested in the wingers. To me, this is the kind of game Tobin Heath must show up in. Germany is, for the most part, not going to challenge her defensively. All she will need to do is stay reasonably at home as the Germans build through the midfield, mainly because the Krauts do so in a deliberate fashion that shouldn't challenge Heath to get back in time like Thomis did. Offensively Tobin has exactly the kind of skill set you want to have on the field against a team that's going to put a lot of numbers forward on the attack/press: some one who can break the pressure with the dribble and deliver accurate medium range passes with finesse. All traits Heath has excelled at in the past. HAO & Engen need to start or come in at half-time, otherwise their inclusion in the roster was utterly pointless. They don't need training time with the USWNT, they need game minutes with the USWNT. I'd be okay with them just being subs at the '60 minute if they had actually been subbed in previous games, but Whit has 6 minutes, all in stoppage time, and Heather has 0. I'm anticipating our wide backs to be Kreiger & Hinkle. I'll be more surprised if Hinkle doesn't get the start, she has 0 minutes so far. I've not been terribly impressed with her either, but her non-inclusion in the line-ups has been more surprising than others. The reasoning behind not giving minutes to veterans contradicts any reasoning for leaving out Hinkle. I can repeat almost the same exact paragraph for Mewis. O'Hara as a winger or leave her home, Dunn can play both KO's position with good/better efficiency in addition to Dunn's false 9 talents. Hope Ali / Julie | Becky \ Jaelene Samantha | Lindsey Cyrstal Tobin / Alexandra \ Mallory
Id be surprised if there were major changes but she has surprised me before. Personally Id like to see Krieger-Johnston-Sauerbrunn-O'Hara across the back for this one. At some point she needs to find out what O'Hara can provide at left back in more than a cameo.
Switching out almost half the line-up from the previous match? I think some very loud part of you thinks Tom is still the coach. Jill tends to make teensy eensy weensy changes from match to match. She rarely goes whole hog and replaces all the linens.
World's Top Women Soccer Players Still Getting Second-Class Treatment http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/hope-solo-soccer-field_us_56df7ab1e4b0860f99d71f56
I wish Tom was still the coach. I'm still hoping Ellis remembers the big difference in performance the line-up change in the WWC made (forced by two yellows). We don't make a significant change to the line-up, Germany probably will beat us. We've had their number lately but we are going into this game stale & uninspired, unlike recent match-ups.
Have you seen the Germans play this tournament? They are even less "inspired" than the US. I disagree though that our performance is uninspired but that's neither here nor there
Ze Germans will always be ze Germans, they're a machine though they sometimes look to have no purpose. Germany playing as they have will beat the US 2-0 or more if the two teams continue with the status quo of this tournament. If not here on this thread or there on the pitch, where is it then?
I watched the second half of Canada vs. Brazil Algarve cup. Brazil were not scary. Germany vs. England. Germany were not scary - I was dumbfounded that they pulled the win out of thin air. Those National Team programs must get frustrated at how the USWNT simply re-loads with great players when the veteran great players move on. BTW, I think there should be a new # for Christine Sinclair #PassingAbby.
Jennifer Gordon covers the Washington Spirit and other mid-Atlantic women's soccer for The Equalizer. It's not her day job, but I think you can still call her a journalist.