Yes, I am actually thinking that if they can't expand it to 16 teams it may actually be better to go back to 8. 12 and 24 isn't natural numbers with the way Soccer tournaments are set up by FIFA/IOC/UEFA and should only be used short periods when moving from 8 to 16 and 16 to 32.
If we go to 16, than only two teams would advance from each group. Believe me, the group games would be a bore fest, with teams playing more D in trying to keep scores down. It would certainly be unfair to Australia who only lost 2nd place by one goal to eventual champs ll and were stuck in the only group with 3 top ten teams.
I think that's flying in the face of what we've seen in the 16-team WWC tournaments. Besides, if we expand to 16, then teams like Australia are much less likely to land in a 3rd-place spot anyway.
Due to goal difference, Sweden only managed 3rd place in what was obviously the weakest group, but still made it to the finals. But I can see how American fans would of loved if Sweden did get eliminated, as they now got an 0 & 3 record in the last 5 years vs them Besides that, the 12 team format have provided exciting & competitive championship games(Euros & Olympic) where as last year's WC format it was very one sided/or pretty much over after the first 14 minutes.
Um, what?? Unless you've got an ax to grind, I have no clue how you got that out of my post. You went massively tangential, as well as inaccurate if you think that's where I'm coming from. Heck, Sweden's case would be similar to Australia's case, if anything - in a tournament of 16, they would safely be a top-two team instead of potentially dropping to a 3rd place in the 12-team format, so they'd basically advance anyway from what I said. (Also, get your stats correct, especially against me: USA are 2W-4D-3L against Sweden from 2011 to now.) You know that last year's WC was a 24-team format, not a 16-team format, right? If you're arguing for group stages that let third-place teams in, you've just kinda shot yourself in the foot. If you're arguing against the 16-team format like you did in your previous post, you should be looking at USA-Japan '11 or Germany-Brazil '07. Besides, if the final match is all you measure your tournament by, you're really missing the forest for the tress - actually, not even for all the trees, just a single tree!
No one is saying that a 12 team tournament can't be exciting, just that its not balanced in its formatting and thus can lead to weird situations in the knockouts, like having both semifinals be rematches of group stage games. Just for the sake of clarity (in increasing order of the size of the tournament): 1996 and 2000 Olympics: 8 teams (no QF's; top 2 teams from each of the 2 groups went straight to a SF) 2004 Olympics: 10 teams (in which there were 2 groups of 3; the WORST format for a tournament, even 12 teams is better) 1991 and 1995 WWC and 2008, 2012, and 2016 Olympics: 12 teams (2 3rd place teams advanced to QF) 1999, 2003, and 2007 WWC: 16 teams 2015 WWC: 24 teams
The quarter finals in the last couple of Olympics where very competitive. That's not always the case on the other formats. There's also always seems to be a group of death no matter what format or how many teams involved. What concerns me is this; The kind of sore looser mentality that I'm getting from American fans. Not trying to pick on any individual but after reading a thousand posts either here or on the EQ, the general assessment I got after the 2012 OG is this from American fans; 'we got our revenge(over Japan)' 'we're number 1 now' 'we got bragging rights for the next three years'!.......and that's even though Japan won what was supposedly the most important crown in woso. So it's kinda ironic that now after the US looses, this tourney has been downgraded with excuses like it's a poor format, or worse yet; many US fans have taken up Solo's call and called Sweden bunker style cowardly. And even if the individual poster doesn't adhere to this, I still don!'t see them go over to the German NT threat, and give them credit like; yep, now you got bragging rights for the next three years!
Not to say that there aren't some sore losers, but I'm pretty sure its everyone agreeing that 12 teams are a poor format. Many of us were commenting before the Olympics even began on how we'd much rather have 16 teams. In fact, in this thread it was brought up by @JanBalk who we know is a Swedish fan. And on Solo's comments, I know I've seen many more US fans lambasting Solo on it than agreeing with her. I'll also say this discussion probably fits better elsewhere than us continuing to take over Australia's thread.
YES!!! the Matildas got now their own youtube channel; welcome to the 21st Century! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCA7wpz7TokI3HFjp5iFG-xg
and here is the Matildas 2nd successive win in the Tournament of Nations, giving them the lead by 3 points. Very strong performance vs Japan, especially by Sam Kerr with her hat trick in the first half. But then Devanna came into the game at the start of the 2nd half, and I'm beginning to think that her & Kerr just don't have that good chemistry together, as they're both like to scores& aren't appt to sharing the ball with each other
here is the 3rd of the Matildas Tournament of Nations games & they definitely won it in style. Despite conceding the first goal, they went on to beat Brazil by an incredible 6-1. Didn't feel that the Kerr Foord, Devana, combo upfront in the Japan match(especially with the latter two only coming in at the 2nd half with Kerr all ready scoring a hat trick with out them). But man was I wrong, they definitely blew apart that theory. Still got to wonder why Staj didn't brought along the speedster, Adriana Jones, as Devanna is all ready 32 years old(can she maintain her speed at the 2019 WC?) But here's to you Matildas, you've proved that your right now the best team in the world part 1 ! part 2
The games kept coming: Australia v Brazil, 16 Sep 2017 https://matildas.footballaustralia.com.au/video/matildas-v-brazil-highlights-0 Australia v Brazil, 19 Sep 2017 Australia v China, 22 Nov 2017 https://matildas.footballaustralia....l-double-leads-matildas-victory-against-china Australia v China, 26 Nov 2017 Algarve Cup Norway v Australia, 28 Feb 2018 Algarve Cup Portugal v Australia, 2 Mar 2018 Algarve Cup Australia v China, 5 Mar 2018 Algarve Cup Portugal v Australia 3rd place playoff, 7 Mar 2018 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSTwMPjKB20 Australia v Thailand, 26 Mar 2018 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-H_O7-K6ULg Asian Cup South Korea v Australia, 7 Apr 2018 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ec3TaSzI9_Q Asian Cup VIetnam v Australia, 10 Apr 2018 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGGEAE-b9i0 Asian Cup Japan v Australia group game, 13 Apr 2018 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPPq-JkzlmE Asian Cup Thailand v Australia semi-final, 17 Apr 2018 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDqjr-29N9s Asian Cup Japan v Australia final, 20 Apr 2018 https://matildas.footballaustralia.com.au/video/full-time-highlights-japan-1-0-australia-0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqxtevkJJIg (sorry if any are geoblocked etc) Australia's U20s are about to play in the AFF Women's Championship 2018.
wow blimey "Matildas set to play France and England as preparation for the 2019 Women’s World Cup" - https://www.foxsports.com.au/footba...p/news-story/7092cfdafd76aa4e9543d200e0eae5fb The England-Australia game isn't confirmed yet – but now there's no playoff match for England, they'll be free. On TV last night, Phil Neville mentioned wanting to play several of the world's top 10 before the World Cup in 2019.
I would like an England-Japan friendly match in the next month. Especially in England: it's a lot of time I don't visit England!
England v Australia friendly is confirmed for 9 October (19:00 GMT) by the FA. A chance to see how far both teams have come:
thanks for the info, & may I ask; what goes good with shrimp on the barbie? Chile of course! nutter good news 4 Aussie fans; all W-League games will be televised! Game changer! In a massive boost for women's football, fans will be able to watch EVERY match of the @WLeague. And that's just one of many MAJOR changes to the league 👌https://t.co/USHcSVBygTvia @CarlyAdno226 pic.twitter.com/vwQo5wRqAJ— Fox Football (@FOXFOOTBALL) September 6, 2018 while those games might be geo blocked, looked no further than BS poster extraordinaire, WWE_Movement@, to hack into & play them for us!