The quarterfinals are set, and let the individual match threads begin. QF21 is Sweden playing Japan on 30 July 2021 at 7 pm local time in the Saitama Stadium in Saitama. I'll let you all figure out (and possibly post here to help others) when and where the game is broadcast in your area of the world.
30 July 2021 local time 19:00 Saitama Stadium 2002, Saitama Which should be: 12:00 Sweden and CET (summer) 10:00 UTC 19:00 Japan
Fully fit, so it is clamied at least and I see no reason to doubt that. She was just as Lindahl, Glas and Rolfö not suited up since Gerhardsson liked to get them some rest and rotate the players. Most of the other starters started on the bench today. Most likely the starting 11 against Japan will be similar to the one against US or Australia or an combination thereof. IOW the players that started in both will most likely start, and the rest will be from the ones that started in one of those two matches.
UK 11:00 (BST) Eurosport (5 maybe?) The schedule is unspecified. Women’s Quarter Finals, with two different overlapping time slots, none of which starts just before 11:00, so Standard Eurosport Viewing Procedures apply: just check every channel and hope for the best.
I can't see Japan winning this. Sweden is athletic, in sharp form, confident and scoring goals. They've also been very solid defensively. Japan would have to raise its level considerably to pull the upset.
I frankly can't see them winning this one either, although maybe they could be able to at least keep it close: if you think about it, Japan's offensive game has been abysmal, but they only conceded 2 goals in 3 games (tied with Sweden for 2nd-best defense of the tournament: only GB did better with just 1 goal against).
I d k, W/D/L is 5/3/3 in Japan’s favour. I feel like Sweden consistently “misunderestimates” Japan. Groups are over, now it’s really on, and Swedes never do their best when it counts. https://www.worldfootball.net/teams/japan-frauen-team/schweden-frauen-team/11/
I would say, that's only partially true. But I think Sweden are always best as underdogs. They were underdogs when they beat Germany in the World Cup and the US in the Olympics now. How can they handle being favourites after the impressive group stage? That will be very interesting to see.
https://www.svt.se/sport/fotboll/johannesson-4 I like it that there isn’t the usual “happy to be here” nonsense coming from the players, but there is a thin line between healthy confidence and overconfidence.
Ah, the Dark Arts of the Reverse Jinx, wrested from the ancient traditions of the Rivalry Forum. Ah for the good old days
Using the official published FIFA ratings, Japan (published rating 1942) is favored in this match over Sweden (rating 2011) because of the homefield advantage, with roughly a 54% or slightly less odds of advancing to the semifinals. That's the sort of gloomy prognostication which should suit the gloomy Swedes (tee-hee!) I'd say it's also bollocks, made so in large part by the small sample of matches played by both teams in the year or so leading up to these Olympics. Japan's performance rating since 1/1/2020 has shown marked decline but because they've played so few matches, their decline hasn't yet been reflected in the official ratings. Their performance rating in this time (by my estimate) is about 1786 including the group stage. Even prior to the group stage, it stood around 1842, a full 100 points below its published official rating. They are, of course, a technically skilled and organized team, but without punch against stronger sides. Frankly, I think they are major underdogs to Sweden, who of course had an exceptional campaign through the group stage. Using the performance ratings (including group stage), Sweden (performance rating: a confidence-boosting, confidence-overflowing 2127) has roughly an 80% chance to advance against Japan (1786) If that's too confident for the Swedes, we can say they seem to be playing at roughly a 2050 rating level (a bit above their official rating of 2011) while Japan is performing no better than South Korea (rating 1811), another technically adept side which failed to qualify for the Olympics At hypothetical performance ratings then of Sweden (2050) and Japan (1842 their pre-Olympics performance rating), Sweden's odds of advancing would be roughly 63% to 65% (with homefield factored in). That's about as gloomy as Team Lingonberry should realistically be, or as realistically hopeful that the Nadeshiko should be
At the 2019 World Cup game between the US and Sweden, the Swedes had a chant that we thought sounded really good. My wife inquired of a fan if he could translate. She told him their chant was much better than the US "I believe that we will win." He said theirs was pretty tame, just as bad as ours -- "Sweden, Sweden, hey are you ready? Sweden, Sweden, yes we are ready."
yea, that call-and-response thing can be effective and surprising. Especially around town before the game in the “Andra sidan är ni klara?” version (other side, are you ready?) as you’ll see one group of people dressed as the Minions chant that, and then a completely different group of Minions at the other end of, say a public square respond “Jajamensan fattas bara”, meaning “yes of course”. Semantically not advanced but rhythmically pleasing.
Sweden vs Japan R: VENEGAS Lucila (MEX) AR1: CHAVEZ Mayte (MEX) AR2:CAUDILLO Enedina (MEX) 4O: BORJAS Melissa (HON) VAR: VIGLIANO Mauro (ARG) AVAR: CUNHA Andres (URU)
Solid line-up. Let's hope it'll be enough. Preventing goals will be key, so Miyagawa gives me much more confidence than Kitamura. I also like the offense line with Iwabuchi and Tanaka: we need numbers ahead, if we want to ever score any goal.
Sweden starting 11: Sweden subs for the game: It is the same starters as against USA except that Magdalena Eriksson is fit now and thus replace Jonna Andersson. Same subs to except that Jonna Andersson replaces Julia Roddar at the bench, so the 4 not dressed for the game are the ones that was the alternates.