van Veenendaal saved her team on more than one occasion plus coupe of Spain shots went just wide the post or hit the woodwork. Really with just tiny bit of luck this match would've ended 5-0
To be fair, imo only France and England besides Spain and the USA are teams I'd rank clearly above NL. All the other countries are just as poor, with Germany at least potentially still with room for clear improvement.
Spain have one major advantage to pretty much every national team in the world at the moment: Their line-up is made up of players largely from one club, Barcelona. It's easier for them to just pick up their normal game on international weeks. Many teams have to gather players from half a dozen leagues around Europe and start all over every other month. When major tournaments come around, and other teams are allowed to prepare for weeks on pre-camps, Spain's advantage will not be wiped out, but less visible.
I would add Japan to it (and in near future China as well) Japan team at WWC 2019 (mostly U23 at the time) outplayed the Dutch in latter part of 2nd half of their round of 16 match. Oranje were quite lucky to advance with this favorable PK call given to them in dying minutes. Both Spain and Japan narrowly lost their otherwise close round of 16 matches against tournament ultimate finalists. (both with little help from refs) Both countries has produced in past 6-8 years some of the best young players on the world youth stage - including the finalist of the last WWC U-20. Imo if Japan would had to play the Dutch today instead of Spain, the run of this match wouldn't be any different - the Dutch would be equally outplayed. Van de Donk, Groenen, Roord were losing the battle against the quality of Alexia, Patri, Aitana and Jenni and it woudn't be any different with Hasegawa, Sugita, Miura and Nakajima on the pitch. Staying long in FA WSL which is mostly based on pace and power and less on creativity is really starting to show among Dutch mids.
Diacre should be very pleased. Caution to the wind for "old guards" was just thrown - you all are replaceable
9th April Bosnia 0 - 0 Albania Wales 0 - 3 Canada Rose 25, Viens 58, Fleming 63 Spain 1 - 0 Netherlands (full match) Patri 31 France 3 - 1 England Baltimore 32, Asseyi 63(p), Katoto 82 - Kirby 79(p)
I get the Dutch were poor, but come on regarding 0 for them. Paredes was incredibly lucky not to concede a 78th minute penalty for a poor challenge on Miedema, Patri looked questionably offside on her goal in my opinion, and Spain was incredibly lucky on that poor header from van de Sanden. More like 4-2 and not 5-0.
Pretty hard to have 20 shots without some quality, and if it was the case perhaps you tell whoever was shooting to stop shooting. And speaking of quality shots, Jessie Fleming one-upped Guro Reiten yesterday: I believe the comment someone quoted the Americans as saying was "we could win without a coach." Well when you're Chelsea and you have players like that sitting on your bench, it would take some pretty majestic coaching to f**k it up.
By that logic add to the final result all the 50/50 calls also not given to the Spain team. Difference in result should still be 5.... or more. Shots. ESP 20-1 NED if Aussie will play toe to toe with Germany tomorrow.... then worry. It's gonna be hard to bounce back against them. Only one FIFA window for friendlies after this one before Olympic starts. EDIT. Oh, one more thing. Every team that's is going to Tokyo is deciding about now how to trim their roster. Versatile players are in grater demand than specialized ones. That seem to be a problem for this highly-specialized Dutch team.
Interesting. I thought Spain got a lot of soft calls and were allowed to kick/push Dutch players without punishment quite a few times. Regardless, what exactly is the clear relevance of 50/50 calls to the scoreline? The moments I mentioned directly impacted the score. Like 60% of those shots were hopeful shots outside the box, but I factored in the Spanish chances when I gave them 4 goals. We’ll just agree to disagree.
The Lyon fans going into meltdown after the game yesterday because we won with none of their players was really funny. They were gutted.
I guess there are very "hungry" players behind them and they were super-motivated to do their best yesterday.
Felicitas Rauch was tested positive. She and her Wolfsburg teammates Lena Oberdorf, Sara Doorsoun and Svenja Huth are in quarantine. The game against Australia should be played as planned.
Wow! Hurtig plays in Italy, in Juventus: I feel as if Italy had scored vs USA. OK, I'll admit that's over-reaching.
US came back and equalized a few minutes from time on a Rapinoe penalty. 1-1 final score. Strong Swedish performance.
Yes, the Dutch could use 3 Dominque Janssen's instead of 1. And she was playing out of position yesterday. I'm no coach, and soccer analysts know a ton more than me--but to me the Dutch 4-3-3, which they ALWAYS play, and usually well, simply was not going to work against a Spanish side that besides being technical and wedded to ball control by nature, started the match with 5 midfielders!
Montemurro's used Roord differently this season compared to last season, and she plays in midfield or out wide on the Dutch national team. He also has moved van de Donk around the pitch this season, and she played a lot of last season out wide despite almost always being a CAM on the Dutch national team. Stoney had Groenen at CAM for almost all of last season (with two matches at CM and one match as a secondary striker), at her natural CM position for the first half of this season (except Chelsea where she was played as a RW), and at CAM/CM/RW/LW at different moments throughout the second half of this season. Wiegman's also experimented with Beerensteyn at RB, which may well have been a better choice than starting Janssen vs Spain. There's some versatility in this Dutch side in my opinion, but whatever.
Germany 5 - 2 Australia Nüsken 11, Hendrich 48, Brand 62, Freigang 64, Dallmann 90+1 -- Gielnik 82, 90+2
Australia with some horrible defending in the first couple goals in that match. Couple new faces for Germany; # 19 Jule Brand was very dynamic. Nice to see Leonie Maier back on the roster, and as captain to boot.