Let's be momentarily US-centric and break out the prospective US matches: RFK Stadium, site of the tournament’s first U.S. Women’s National Team match and opening ceremonies on Sunday, Sept. 21. The USA’s second match takes place in the sparkling new Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia on Thursday, Sept. 25. First round group play for the U.S. WNT will end in Columbus, Ohio on Sunday, Sept. 28 at Columbus Crew Stadium. The tournament quarterfinals will be played as doubleheaders on Wednesday, Oct. 1 at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, Mass., and on Thursday, Oct. 2 at PGE Park in Portland, Ore. Should they advance to the knockout stage, the U.S. Women would play their quarterfinal match in Boston. PGE Park will also host the tournament semifinals on Sunday, Oct. 5 The final and third place matches of the Women’s World Cup will be played as stand alone games on Oct. 11 and Oct. 12, respectively, at The Home Depot Center in Carson.
for me, the big question is who are #1 seeds other than china or usa.. it's either germany or norway or brazil, take your pick out of those 3...
its very clear that US,Norway,China,Germany/Brazil (in'99 Germany was seeded higher than Brazil )will lead each of the group, so, there'll be consider a group of death which will containing either Brazil or Germany plus other strong team Sweden.
Brazils' 3rd place in 1999 might give them the edge this time... picking between Norway and Germany is tough...Norway defending Olympic champs and Germany, euro champ is so close.. I'd say Germany is a better team right now..but you are correct the group of death is whichever group gets the leftover potential #1... and let's put that team in the China group, along with Canada and Australia China would have three difficult matches... Canada and France are my two surprise teams, teams capable of beating a #1 seed...
could one argue that brazil will get seeded in part because of its being from south america and in part because it's brazil? hey, it's fifa, they might be that corrupt...
I should start up a "Concerned about tix" thread.... I wonder if at the beginning when tix finally go on sale...the powers-that-be make earlier purchasers purchase a "ticket package" deal rather than letting folks just buy tix for individual matches. Someone correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't this the way it was setup for 1999? Maybe they'll do ticket packages first and then do individual game tix later. I have a friend in SoCal that fell into this trap. She had to purchase a ticket package rather than just scoring a ticket for the final.
Where in Philly is Lincoln Financial Field? if you look at the www.lincolnfinancialfield.com web site, they don't include an address. Is it anywhere near the Vet/Spectrum?
i can pretty much guarentee that if you want tickets to see the u.s. you are going to have to buy a "pack" of tickets...one of the reasons they are having the us team travel the country to all the venues in the opening rounds is so people have to buy the "pack" and those other less than desirable matches are "sold-out" as well...
Despite a lot less time to do it, in my opinion the logo for the WWC 03 looks a lot better than the atrocious Germany 06 one.
way back when... I believe when I purchased my '99 tickets, through pre-sale a year in advance, I bought the 2 match day double headers to Chicago as a package and the Final as a single match day. But, I seem to remember some catch to it...
Re: way back when... Maybe we had to purchase a minimum of two match days so that they could sell the non-U.S. games in those cities where the U.S. played? I would think that they won't sell a U.S.-only package for all three 1st round games. I could see them saying "no more than one match day involving the U.S. and no less than one match day not involving the U.S. must be included" The Final/3rd places matches should be a package in themselves. Or you could choose one with another match day.
In 99 I had to buy the 3 games at FedEx Field to get them early. Individual game tickets went on sale earlier. I would hope since this is being announced so late they would give fans the chance to buy individual dates right away. Sunday-Wednesday-Saturday at RFK for doubleheaders would be a bit much to committ to.
Too much???? In addition to the 3 games at RFK (9/21, 9/24, 9/27) with this schedule, I figure that I can make the 2 Philly games (9/20 & 9/25). The stretch will be trying to make the USA game in Columbus (9/28) and whether I can get a single game ticket for Quarter finals in Boston (10/1). I'm pumped!!!! I'm not traveling to Portland or LA.
I'd bet USSF goes the venue specific route initially to ensure a decent size crowds show up for the NON-USA doubleheaders... still, I think even for USA, barring Columbus, tickets for USA matches when individual matches go on sale, would be available