It would be worse if either team had won in a penalty shoot-out. My personal feeling - its like neither team wins the Game.
AET 2-1 Congratulations to North Korea. They always looked much more dangerous than us all match. USA doesn't think fast enough to play North Korea's one-touch ping game, nor defend against it. DPRK expended unbelievable amounts of energy to pull 8-9 behind the ball on defense, and then do 5-player length-of-field fast breaks. They outnumbered us in critical areas of the field, double-teamed every lone runner we sent forward, and crowded all of our space. I think it's part of their defensive scheme to deny space before we make runs into them -- so we never even saw any inviting gaps to run into. We kept lunging for the ball, and left gaps behind the challenger, and they had 2 players making the off-ball runs. Their senior WNT plays that way, too.
For emphasis... North Korea 2 United States 1 Well, let's put it this way. The Dear Leader and his minions could use the extra cash. You're welcome. Commiserations, Kaz Tambi. Now, if only a few of the folks wearing red could defect...
After watching the 2nd half, and both overtime periods in this game, I have came to the conclusion that I am not that excited about the future of U.S. women's soccer. I know they are only girls 17 or under right now, but if this is the best they've got at that age (getting ready to go into their collegiate careers), then indeed... the rest of the world has caught up (and almost even passed) the U.S. women in talent... from countries such as: Brazil, Germany, Korea, even England, and perhaps Norway, etc. These nations are either "even" with the American women, or have passed them (such as Brazil, and possibly Germany, who have won the past two major world cups in women's soccer). Brazil also beat the U.S. 4-0 in the world cup, and outplayed the Americans in the Olympics, but the U.S. was the team to finish that game (Carli Lloyd), while the Brazilians continued to choke with their finishing, like they always do in major soccer championship title games (World Cup, Olympics, etc.) While the American girls are spending their time swearing at the top of their lungs with curse words, and spending too much time in their social life, on myspace and facebook, and continuing to dis-obey their parents on sexuality by jerking off their boyfriends in private; while at this exact same time the rest of the young women's soccer players from international countries are putting in full force effort and determination to get better. These American girls need to cut back on their social life, and spend more time honing their skills. They didn't show much in this game.
This is the first time I saw the video of U17 girls' play, a little disappointed because I have expected the new generation to play a more fluid soccer but from this game I didn't see. The game was full of longballs and turnovers, though the girls have tried their best to chase and win back possession throughout the game. I don't know if this is because the asians' agility and quickness really gave us some troubles or we are just not technical enough.
Well it gets bad when things go astray off the point. So see you & all for the u-20s in a couple of weeks.
Vicki DiMartino - Silver Boot(2nd most goals with 5) Taylor Vancil - Golden Glove Award(best goalkeeper) Kristie Mewis - Bronze ball Award(3rd best overall player in tournament)
If you just got into this, then the FIFA site has a 2-minute clip of every game. http://www.fifa.com/u17womensworldcup/video/videolist.html Also on YouTube you can find somewhat longer highlights, at least of some games. I could not see this game, and I only saw one full game. But generally I thought the standard was much higher than I would have dreamed possible. A lot of the GKs had "overhead" issues leading to some easy goals, but otherwise it was the real deal. Going back to the FIFA videos, I made this list when I went through the opening rounds - I think you would like them - 1. Most crowd atmosphere and most goalmouth scrambles (watch the one near the end), the opening game NZ v Canada. 2. Memorable goal (one of many) - Brazil's free kick in its 2-2 tie with Nigeria - a perfect banana from 35 yards, perfectly placed. 3. Memorable display - the first half of the Japan-France game - these goals owed nothing to luck - some are a joy to see twice. Perhaps the headed goal is the pick. 4. The biggest celebration - the home team NZ winning in its final game, even though they had been eliminated - they looked like they had won the tournament. Also, apparently 164,000 fans have attended the first 24 games, with a few games getting over 10,000 through the gate - and I wonder how many were at the final today.
Yeah, all of the u-20 American games are on TV. USA vs. France (ESPN2, and ESPN2-HD, also on Galavision) USA vs. Argentina (ESPN360.com, and Galavision) USA vs. China (ESPNU, which is channel 614 on DirecTV, and Galavision) ESPNU (channel 614 on DirecTV) will also have coverage of a couple of other international matches throughout early round play, but they are supposed to show two Quarterfinal games, and the Semifinal games. The u-20 final is supposed to only be on ESPN360.com, for now. All of Mexico's games (vs. Brazil, vs. Norway, vs. Korea), will be on Galavision as well. Galavision is channel 404 on DirecTV, and you get that channel for free with DirecTV, as long as you have a basic package of 150 channels or more. Galavision will have all 3 of the USA games, and all 3 of the Mexico games in early round play.
That's what I said - discipline them !!! But - you can't be serious - you really crcaked me up there........
We can now officially start to talk about the u-20 tournament. The U.S. are one of the favorites. Let's hope they can attack better than the u-17 team. Plus they have the best women's soccer coach in the history of the game (not named Anson Dorrance).
Well that's a movie - but I will look it up (is it fact-based, etc) By the way I do agree in a sense that the level of soccer is higher in the Asians at this age, their play (especially Japan's) showed evidence of astounding committment. On the other hand, the USA did get to the final, and overcame a deficit against Germany. The best news is that this was the first u-17 WC, and you know that all teams will have to improve even just to qualify next time.
"Her Best Move" is the greatest women's (actually.. girl's) soccer movie of all time. Well, it's like the only one. The whole movie is about a 16 or 17 year old high school girl that is supposedly extremely talented at soccer. She is made fun of by the boys at school, but finally meets the so called boy of her dreams, who is kind of a shy type of boyish dork, and not in the cool crowd at school. She almost makes the women's national team on a few occassions, as her dad is like a coach on the team or something. At the end, when she is finally called up to the national team, her boyfriend thinks he is going to lose her (and lose spending time with her), but she chooses to spend time with him instead, and declines joining the national team. I don't think the DiMartino or Mewis girls would have chosen their boyfriend over that route, but who knows, LOL.
Then you havent seen "Bend it Like Beckham" That's outstanding, and millions of viewers agree. It is a MUST see. I will look for "Her Best Move" to rent.....