I just noticed it is raining, not unusual at all for Costa Rica, but my Central American weather service I use is down so I can't tell if it is just a light or short rainy period or if it is building to some like earlier in the tournament. Does anyone know what the forecast is for later?
Why do referees still allow players to exit by walking to the center? I thought the rule was changed to require players to exit at the closest sideline or endline. Brazil draws another penalty but VAR takes forever. It is upheld, finally. Brazil scores this time. 3-1 with Brazil leading. The goalkeeper just looks stupid on this one.
My granddaughters just joined me and they are settling in for the final. They have a pile of "snacks" that I almost wish I could share. They have snacks I can recognize from at least four countries, five if you consider Hawaii as a separate country. My supper is late, I will fix it between matches but I usually eat my late meal a 18:00 and it is now 20:00. My granddaughters have the advantage of having a mother to cook for them and they are also both good cooks but their kitchen can be a dangerous place if all three are working. When I visited the number of knives flashing around the kitchen at meal times was more than a little scary. Holland fails to play defense near the end so Brazil goes up 4-1.
I just switched to FS1 to be on the correct channel for the final and I find rain (MLS: Orlando vs NYC) that looks a lot like Costa Rica. Of course the MLS field does not drain well at all and water is standing all over the field. I hope it is not but this looks like a match that should be suspended because the ball is not rolling on much of the field. If this match gets suspended for an hour or so it may mean that the final will get moved to FS2 or even just be shown, at least for the first part, on the FOX sports app.
I have seen many full sides from Brazil, both men's and women's, do that when faced with adversity. In this case Brazil really faced few problems while Holland had a lot of issues.
That is good!! While the fields in Costa Rica drain very well I would prefer to have the final played in good conditions. I think Japan has an advantage because they play attacking soccer better than Spain but that is tempered a bit because they tend to pass up good shots looking for the "perfect" shot. Of course Spain sometimes does the same but Spain does, when they get in range, take shots that are a little less than perfect.
I'll take that and ignore the rest. It'll better be a good final, since I woke up at 3:45 am to watch it!
For this match we have the commentators from Hell back. FOX also does not have a SAP for Spanish speakers (or any other language) so I am stuck with the choice of no audio or crappy commentary. For now I am going with listening to crap. Japan makes mistake at the back and their goalkeeper just watches while Spain rolls the ball in the back of the net. It looked offside to me but VAR, finally, say it was on. 1-0 Spain.
Does not Japan have a goalkeeper that is any good? This one make a lot of mistakes and fails to catch even easy balls.
Japan had rotated all three GKs at group stage and this one decidingly looked like the best one of the three (especially vs USA).
I think Japan could have good success by attacking through the middle of the field. It looks cluttered but there are openings there if Japan would attack them. Attacking down the wings is exactly what Spain practices defending against all the time so Japan needs to do something different.
The commentator just saying: "It keeps raining here in Jan José". It wasn't really apparent from the pictures, so I am grateful for him to point it out.
I actually did not think she was particularly good against the USA. Her feet were wrong a lot and that should have cost her. While the defense made the first mistake Japan's GK just stops at the worst spot and lets Spain get a second with little problem. It is too late to sub her but she is just bad today.
Now Japan tries to dribble the ball with their hand in the box so Spain gets a PK. Japans GK just watches the ball go into the net. She did not even try.
Now at less that the 30:00 mark Spain leads 3-0 and it is not that close. Right now the Japanese GK gets my vote for worst performance of the tournament. I have had it with the idiots in the booth, I think they are calling the match without watching it, so I will watch the rest muted.
There is not coming back from this, but Maika Hamano is anyway doing wonders despite the fact Japan barely manages to sometimes have control of the ball.
The only way Japan gets back into this will be if they come out in the second half with a completely different and aggressive plan and it works. I do not know if they have the ability to play a different style but if they don't the will go out with the whimper they are showing in this first half. I still think Spain is vulnerable up the middle but since they can just pack it in now the holes I have seen may just disappear.
They are only giving 2 minutes of stoppage. Just the one VAR review took at least 3 so this ref got something wrong again.
I even had to mute the feed from my granddaughters for a while. I did not know they had such a full vocabulary, in four languages, those schools in Japan are really doing their job of building language skills. BTW: It was not so much what was being said but, rather, it was the volume.
The 2nd half is starting both Spain and Japan seem to be making some changes but I still have the audio turned off so I do not know who was changed or why.