UEFA Women's Euro 2022 - General Discussion

You know, my first thought was that this is a very boring set of semifinals with no "new blood".... Then I saw that FRA has apparently never made the top four before at all. Guess I'm too ingrained with the CL patterns with clubs and whatnot. (FRA still is a top-five team in historic total points, though, above DEN, ITA, and NED.)

Still wish it was ESP and BEL instead of ENG and GER, but oh well....

 

I like to look at the shots on target stats and its conversion rate into goals as the decisive stat for all teams. Now in the semifinals the favorites in both pairings are clear going by this stat:

England (open) England (close)

England - Austria
Shots on target: 5 - 2
Goals: 1 (20%) - 0

England - Norway
Shots on target: 14 - 0
Goals: 8 (57%) - 0

Northern Ireland - England
Shots on target: 1 - 6
Goals: 0 - 5 (83%)

England - Spain
Shots on target:3 - 4
Goals: 2 (67%) - 1 (25%)

Overall shots on target: 28 - 7
Goals: 16 (57%) - 1 (14%)

Sweden (open) Sweden (close)

Netherlands - Sweden
Shots on target: 4 - 4
Goals: 1 (25%) - 1 (25%)

Sweden - Swiss
Shots on target: 15 - 5
Goals: 2 (13%) - 1 (20%)

Sweden - Portugal
Shots on target: 9 - 2
Goals: 5 (56%) - 0

Sweden - Belgium
Shots on target: 9 - 0
Goals: 1 (11%) - 0

Overall shots on target: 37 - 11
Goals: 9 (24%) - 2 (18%)

Germany (open) Germany (close)

Germany - Denmark
Shots on target: 9 - 2
Goals: 4 (44%) - 0

Germany - Spain
Shots on target: 2 - 2
Goals: 2 - 0

Finland - Germany
Shots on target: 0 - 7
Goals: 0 - 3 (43%)

Germany - Austria
Shots on target: 5 - 1
Goals: 2 (40%) - 0

Overall shots on target: 23 - 5
Goals: 11 (48%) - 0

France (open) France (close)

France - Italy
Shots on target: 7 - 4
Goals: 5 (71%) - 1 (20%)

France - Belgium
Shots on target: 7 - 1
Goals: 2 (29%) - 1

Iceland - France
Shots on target: 2 - 4
Goals: 1 (50%) - 1 (25%)

France - Netherlands
Shots on target: 11 - 1
Goals: 1 (9%) - 0

Overall shots on target: 29 - 8
Goals: 9 (31%) - 3 (38%)

So England, Sweden and especially Germany have excellent defenses. France falls a little short. But Germany and especially England have a significantly higher conversion rate for shots on goal. France and especially Sweden do have a lot of shots on target but too few goals to show for that.

 

But then it could not get a second billing as a Women's MMA elimination battle.
Whoever is still standing and can walk off the field after the match is over also qualifies for an MMA cage match in 4 months.
So there is more than soccer on the line.

Maybe Germany will bring Birgit Prinz out of retirement to go even more physical. I know I would not want to meet ms. Prinz in any kind of "fight."

 

"We're using 50% less cameras in our tournament than you do in the men's game. That is a catastrophe really. You can't make the decisions with the same precision. I think we should use more cameras" @KosovareAsllani on the five goals #SWE have had disallowed at #WEuro2022 #ENGSWE pic.twitter.com/WGaYmJLCCh

— Asif Burhan (@AsifBurhan) July 25, 2022

 

So VAR is a time consuming guessing game?

 

Yep. And that is true no matter how many cameras are deployed. VAR is proving to be worse that the "deaf, dumb and blind" kids we had before. But they can play pinball quite adroitly.

 

A mean pinball, even if not adroit.

 

I was trying to avoid the word "mean" as it said to have negative connotations in many situations.
But I also feel that "mean" is often VERY positive for soccer players. I usually want at least forwards and defenders to have a good bit of "mean" in their system during matches but "mean" is usually not needed off the field.

A little story: I was coaching a U14 girls team (I had only 2 years experience at that time) that I had inherited from another coach half way through the season. We only had two practices before our next match so I really did not know the players very well, yet. During our first match I noticed that one of my players and one on the other team were having altercations that seemed to be escalating. With about 10 minutes left the two got into a shoving contest and even tried, poorly, to punch each other. They were both red carded and I made a note to talk to my player right after the match.
Before I could talk to her I noticed the she and the other girl were in close conversation and seemed to be quite friendly in spite of the animosity they showed earlier.
I walked up to the pair and they both looked at me and saw the perplexed and confused look I had and the girl from the other team said that they were very good friends and that my girl was only "mean" on the field.
It turned out, after I toned the "meanness" down a bit over the next few practices, she became the best striker in the league. She did try to play "nice" in a couple of games and did nothing at all.
She ended up averaging 1.5 goals per game and was "mean" enough to act as a temporary goalkeeper when our primary got hurt.
To play forward effectively there must be a little "mean" in the game and it takes even more "mean" to play good in goal. So I have little problem with players being constructively "mean" during matches.

 

Finland's head coach Anna Signeul has been fired

The U17 coach Marko Saloranta will function as interim coach for the upcoming WC qualifiers in September.

 

If that is true about using 50% fewer cameras for VAR for this tournament, this is NOT ACCEPTABLE. FIFA shows once again that it is only giving the women's game lip service.

 

X-ref Jonas Eriksson in Aftonbladet Jonas Eriksson till ny attack i VAR-bråket på EM: ”Uefa ljuger” (aftonbladet.se) :
Minimum cameras for the Men's Euro, 36:
UEFA Euro 2020: The host broadcast facts and figures for the TV coverage of Europe’s biggest football show (svgeurope.org)
Minimum cameras for the Women's Euro, 16 for group, 17 for QF, 18 for SF and 19 for the Final:
Women’s Euro 2022: Facts and figures for the host broadcast match coverage (svgeurope.org)

 

Had to LOL IRL about this "steady improvement" in the KO matches. That's just plain silly.

 

Player of the Tournament: Mead

Player of the Tournament who's not been a routine starter: Russo with an honorable mention to Matéo

 

In fairness, this was before Germany - France. Then again, maybe I should have anticipated that kind of performance from Popp.

 

Popp is still catching up all the time at the past Euros she lost through injury. If she manages a goal in the final as well, having scored in every single match will be a legend status for eternity.

 

I think it's important to remember that this list is "top speed". What counts as a "sprint" in Olympic running is still much longer than what soccer players will cover in short bursts of speed to chase down a ball in ~5s or less. A lot of this soccer tracking info is fairly high-resolution, so I wouldn't be surprised if explosive, short bursts in a soccer game can match Olympic "sprint" runners for very short distances/times. It's just that competitive runners train to keep that speed up for longer, which soccer players don't have to do.

 

Comparing Olympic runners to soccer players is somewhat like comparing cheetahs to springboks. While the cheetah is quite a bit faster it only rarely can catch a springbok if the chase is more than 30-40 yards. Cheetahs sneak up on prey and use their high acceleration to catch the prey before the prey also reaches top speed. Cheetahs fail to catch their prey most of the time because they cannot run at near top speed for more than a very short time.

Some soccer players are like cheetahs and others are like springboks and can maintain their top speed for quite a long while and recover quite quickly.
There are others that do not have a very high top speed but can run for hours and hours like sled dogs. Humans are actually very good at running and retaining speeds for a long time but the fastest human can only travel 100 meters in about 10 seconds while a cheetah can cover the same distance in about 6 seconds but as you increase distance the difference in speed becomes less and less. If given about a 75 yard head start the average soccer player could easily avoid being a meal.

Speed is important but it is not the end all for most athletes. In soccer it is speed of play that matters the most. Of the players I have actually seen the fastest during play was Sir Stanley Mathews. Who often was refereed to as Stanley (slow as a turtle) Mathews. I only saw him very late in his career. (1964-65)
He was really not all that slow but most defenders could catch him in the open field quite easily. But, somehow, he scored a good number of breakaway goals and often managed to be wide open on the wing or even in the center of the field by beating a player and delivering great crosses or great strikes on goal. In general quick and sneaky beats fast.
He was pretty slow running but his speed of play was well above most of the other players of his time.
I have never seen a truly fast player that had good ball skills and real quickness.
Just look at the career of Roy Lassiter who was the fastest player in the US for quite a while but was only average on the soccer field.

I hope I made some sense with that. But I will reinforce it with a quote from Johan Cruyff:

But, on the other hand, I have always liked fast women and soccer is a good place to find a number of them.

 

Correct me if I am wrong, but I figure that winning two back-to-back Euro tournaments with two different National Teams as Sarina Wiegman did was an unique achievement.