You've inspired a generation old and new. You brought the country together. Hold your heads up high, you gave so much. You have inspired young girls who are future #Lionesses and nobody will ever be able to tell them they can't play football again. #ChangeTheGame pic.twitter.com/tNxXT6CzU0— BBC Sport (@BBCSport) July 2, 2019 I don't see it, the US dominated the first half other than the 10 mins England scored. Then the 2nd half the US also choked England out most of the times. Press also had a good chance but she chose to go herself. Overall US is the better side. Of course England is the strongest opponent. The US gained upphand in the other 2 matches by having more chances. It's not about possession, but final third.
Wait, I thought the last game was the final...was this the final? The structure of this tournament is very confusing.
In the Ref Forum I'm being told the rules were changed in 2016 to make most of these DOGSOs yellow cards not red cards. Comrade, the Federation Internationale can't be blamed if we don't faithfully attend the Party Congresses. The paths required by historical necessity are narrow and treacherous and we must place our trust in the Internationale to guide us who haven't rigorously studied its requirements.
I don't accept it at all. There's no compelling reason to think that the frame shown is the exact moment the pass is made. Furthermore, the issue isn't Dahlkemper, it's Sauerbrunn. It's Sauerbrunn In White's field of vision and Sauerbrunn who White is trying to key off of. You can't tell from a still and you can't tell from a really foreshortened clip but it's obvious that White is keying off of Sauerbrunn, who is also hunched over a bit, crouching a bit. I don't care about whether White is offside in relation to Dahlkemper, I want to know if White is offside in relation to Sauerbrunn and not her feet either, her derriere. Where's the vertical line to Sauerbrunn's fanny? Even by the rules of VAR, that's the key question and I don't see evidence that they followed it. It helps to watch White while the pass comes in to Scott. You can clearly see for a bit that White makes sure that Sauerbrunn keeps her onside and then it gets close. I don't think we can tell for sure. I question whether VAR can tell. But at least you see the issue is Sauerbrunn's position and not Dahlkemper's. Here's link to Fox 90 in 90 highlights where you can at least see White while the ball comes in to Scott.
I don’t get the “lucky” commentary. England really has zero to complain about when it comes to marginal, VAR-facilitated offsides calls (cough*cameroon*cough). Houghton didn’t “miss” the penalty. Naeher saved it. Maybe she could have taken it better, but is that luck or a combination of judgement, coaching (especially shot-taker selection), and execution? England benefitted from as many calls and they suffered from. Parris probably should have been booked for dissent several times. England was tackling hard, with studs showing for much of the second half. The penalty on White was very soft and arguable whether it represented a “clear and obvious error” (the alleged standard for VAR decisions). To me, this was a hard-fought, well-played AND well-officiated game that the US won. Bronze and White were great in this tournament. I enjoyed watching England throughout. I also fully believe that either the Dutch or the Swedes will give the US everything they can handle in the final. If the US wins, it’ll be hard to argue they didn’t earn it.
Also why didn't Neville sub up Taylor for the final third finish? Ellen White gave an emotional post-match interview after England's semi-final defeat.#FIFAWWC #Lionesses #ChangeTheGamehttps://t.co/Wbn1fV4uOn pic.twitter.com/scCbJ0rnnI— Match of the Day (@BBCMOTD) July 2, 2019 anyone can tell us what did Ellen White say? It's not available in the US!
It means that if you're very tall you have a very good chance of being a professional basketball player. 30 NBA teams. Multiply by four gives you 120 players in those positions. That means that 0.34% of American men in their 20s over 6 foot 6 (198cm) are professional basketball players. That is a very high percentage. More than 1 in 300. If the stats are correct and not allowing for foreign players.
Ah, in the Netherlands 8% (could be higher now) of the men are over 200 cm. We adjusted the requirements for new buildings in 2003 by adding 20 cm to ceiling and door heights. If we take a 50-50 men/women ratio there are around 8 million men, of which 4 million are adults, so that gives about 320,000 Dutchmen of 200+cm. We could drown the NBA with Dutch....if we played basketball.
Quite an enjoyable match last night. We all knew that England were capable of errors. The only surprise was that it was Bronze who made the most significant. England created quite a lot of good chances though. The USA are too reliant on defending a lead against good teams. Whilst they are very strong favourites for the final they have ridden their luck so far and it is not exactly unknown for the lesser team to win a football match. Most likely they will win the final 2 or 3 nil but if they spend the 2nd half defending a 1 goal lead it might bite them on the backside eventually. I don't like VAR. Takes too long. The decisions last night were correct. I think the offside rule may be rewritten to account for VAR. I'm sure at one point the rule said that the attacking player had to be beyond the last defender to a great extent than inches. I may be mistaken. I think the rule should be both feet are beyond the feet of the defender. The current rules are written for people using their eyesight in real time and with the idea of benefit of the doubt going to the attacker. With VAR there is very little doubt, the only element of doubt is the precise frame where the pass is made. However, you play the game by the rules as they are rather than what you would like them to be so no complaints. The penalty was a penalty. With the penalty I don't understand why White doesn't take them. If she had taken, and scored, England's penalties in this tournament she would be runaway top scorer. I know it is a mental thing and taking a penalty requires different mental skills than instinctively finishing in the box. She really ought to have worked on that though. I also agree that Bronze would be a better choice than Houghton. As a team they must have practised penalties with the possibility of a shoot out in mind. The men's team have massively improved at penalties in recent years and surely there is information sharing at St George's Park. The techniques used to improve on a disastrous penalty shoot out record with the men ought to have been applied to the women.
For those asking why White didn't take the penalty, White: "I’m not on penalties. That’s something that the staff take care of, and that’s the decision. Yeah, I’m not on penalties. We do it in training, and they take it off stats. That’s how it works.”
No-one is throwing a hissy fit about the offside decision. No-one threatened to walk off the pitch. The rules are the rules and the first replay showed it was likely to be ruled out.
I don't think the US has been clearly better than any of Spain, France or England at this point. If anything England and France looked better and were a bit unfortunate. Slipping in the box on a wide open chance? Having your #1 keeper injured before the game and then the US scoring 2 very preventable efforts? Missing a penalty? Yikes, credit to the US because they are getting by on experience and mettle at the moment; to me at least it seems clear that Europe is ready to pass them by, whether they win this tournament or not.
don’t like decisions it provides evidence for against whichever team i’m backing, but love var. agreed. still like the fact that we can better get crucial calls right. agreed. this will not. will! not! change anything...i think. the computer will just draw the line wherever. we’ll still be arguing about whether the player was offside by a millimeter or no....no? [note. the real problem ahead may be the problem with all technology and humans re nice things. will the big money betters and other unscrupuli be able to hack to the advantage of one team or the other? can’t see how, but...even the possibility can be weaponized these days.]
Pretty bold to be talking about "passing by" when you have yet to catch up, but I like the positive attitude! And yes, if all the marginal situations went England's way, and none of the ones you don't mention (e.g. Press failing to pass to Morgan after taking it off your keeper's feet) had gone ours, then England would have won. But that's how margins work; they can break both ways. "Missed Penalty"? No. A saved penalty where out keeper beat your shooter. Slipping in the box? Like no U.S. player slipped and screwed up an advantage. Credit to England for a great match, but the margins we are talking about were determined by the players the teams had on the field. By definition, the U.S. was better where it counted. "Marginally" better, sure, but better.
Exactly. With these type of tight calls you could easily freeze the frame in two very close instances and the decision would go either way. I think I’ve seen about five of these calls now and it feels very unfair on the attacking team.
The problem with wanting them to lose to improve the system doesn't quite make any sense to me. IMO, in order to change the system, you have to have the money and funding to do so and unfortunately the USWNT would not be taken seriously anymore if they lost the tournament and naysayers like Trump and others would say that the US don't deserve to get paid for a terrible performance. So no matter what country you are, you should always be proud and strive to the gold medal at the end because at least it wakes up the powerful investors that may have once been naysayers. I remember listening to Arianna Hingst the other day talk about Germany before their quarter-final match and she was saying something similar in that the country of Germany(which we would call a progressive country) still has a long ways when it comes to support for their women's team and league. When asked if Germany loses, she said that it hurts them financially when they aren't successful and she has to go back fighting the fight for better pay and investment for another 4 years. That is why when Germany did lose, I was sad because I thought about Arianna's comments earlier in the broadcast.
My keeper? The US was opportunistic. England were the better team, and Bronze had one of the worst games I've seen her play. The better team doesn't always win and the US has a few things going for them in terms of experience (and some very questionable reffing decisions that have gone their way) to get this far. England and France both looked the better teams. You better hope the US wins this tournament because it's likely to be their last opportunity for a very long time.
Is Lavelle fine? I think she played very well last game and if she wasn't subbed off due to injury the US would have killed the game before England had the chance. Not really, US is stronger obviously. England had their chances but overall the US is the better one.
England have lost their number 1 keeper for important spells in the past three tournaments now I can’t even recall an opposition goalkeeper getting injured at a tournament in that time.
Better at times? Definitely. But better from start to finish? Definitely not. The USWNT hasn't been obviously outplayed for more than 20-30min per game except for the entire second half against Spain, and in each game they've similarly had at least 20-30min where they were outplaying their UEFA opponents. So while I think Spain were the better team in the R16, the other games have been pretty even. The only things really carrying the US through have been who's been better about capitalizing on rare opportunities. And speaking more broadly, I think this knockout round has been a great display of parity all-around. Aside from England's dismantling of Norway, I don't think any team has put in a "complete" performance. (And yes, I'm even counting the two R16 games that included African teams - because even though England and Germany were definitely the better team in each of those matches, their African opponents also had some good opportunities.) Eh, US aren't going away. Even if they drop to 6th-ranked in the world or something similar, that's still high enough that they'll always be in the conversation for titles. Any team in that 5-8 range can easily get to a final with a favorable draw. (See: one of NED or SWE this tournament)