you got to remember that a lot of our major appropriate aged players weren’t part of this squad; Shaw, Moultrie, A. Thompson as well as 16 year old’s Pfeifer(KC Current but out with ACL) & Bacnaras(who started for San Diego Wave the other day). Arguably the two most heralded players on this squad; Sentnor(Utah Royals)& Giselle(Angel City/lil sis of A Thompson) didn’t have good games. Both were placed at the far right in a rather basic 4-4-2, with Sentnor veering off to the center meaning for Giselle to become the actual outside mid/winger. Unfortunately what might of worked in theory, didn’t work in this game, as Sentnor’s(leading scorer of her pro club) shots kept bouncing off defenders in the now overcrowded central area. Of the supposedly two forwards; Suarez seemed to be non existent as all the passes were geared toward the more speedier Dudley(but who didn’t show much ball control)—in fact, her sub looked a lot more dangerous. Meantime,as FB, Giselle couldn’t keep in check what looked like Spain’s best player(their left outside mid, Coralles) Overall, the US seemed deep & well conditioned for a long tournament(they still dominated play in the last part of both halves). Could use a better coach(as this is the same one from the disastrous, last u20 WC showing). This is now an expanded 24 team tournament, which means even 3rd place group teams can make the playoffs. Hopefully by then the squad can play with a lot more cohesion
She would never admit it, but a game off, might be best. You are right, she has played a LOT of soccer.
I mean. Miracle final second the only difference between having to win the last group game to advance and a draw enough. Crazy. Not at all convinced there is any physical advantage with this group that makes up for the lack of skill, but keep playing and see. Certainly the ability to over hit every through ball outstripped both inherent speed and back to goal touch. At least the US matched Paraguay’s scoreline against the lionesses. On to what amounts to a knockout game! Edited: wait third place teams advance? Draw may always have been enough I guess.
An important win tonight, USA 2-0 Morocco (0-0 @ HT). 6 +3 Spain 3 +1 USA 3 -0 Paraguay 1 -3 Morocco Next up: USA v Paraguay, with a draw giving us the advantage.
The R16 will take greater shape over the next three days. With the USA most likely to end up as C2, we’ll want to keep an eye on tonight’s matchup between Colombia (A1) and Mexico (A2). Why? Because in the R16, C2 will face A2. The R16 has four Group 1st v 3rd matchups, two 1st v 2nd’s, and two 2nd v 2nd’s. We are most likely to be one of the 2 v 2’s. If you're still confused, then I’ve succeeded. Just keep an eye on Colombia v Mexico.
And Group A has concluded: Columbia 1-0 Mexico Cameroon 2-0 Australia 9 Colombia 4 Mexico 4 Cameroon 0 Australia Not sure why Mexico is placed above Cameroon. Cameroon is very likely to advance as a top-4 3rd place team.
I think 4 points will advance any third place team as one or two may advance with only 3. I think it is either total goals or cards. Cameroon is a very physical team, in every sex and age group, and Mexico can be as dirty but they are not as overtly physical so Cameroon probably leads in cards in this tournament.
Likely, but more important Cameroon is clear to go on. 3rd team in group E can not reach 4p and the only way for 3rd in group C to do so is with a draw in United States vs Paraguay and that would leave Paraguay with worse goal different than Cameroon have. So Cameroon is at worst 4th of the 3rd placed team. Same in total goals, so you are probably right that Mexico had fewer diciplinary points (aka cards). Or there was a draw of lots and that tend to be noticed.
Group B concluded last evening, with the only drama being whether France would defeat Fiji by enough goals to overtake Canada for second place, France needing a 13-goal swing. Brazil 2-0 Canada France 11-0 Fiji 9 Brazil (+14) 4 France (+8) 4 Canada (+7) 0 Fiji (-29) I wish FIFA would avoid this unseemliness - encouraging France to press for that elusive 11th goal, which came on a PK at 90+5’ - by collapsing runaway scores after some modest number. Otherwise, you have what we saw in this group: 9-0, 9-0, 11-0.
watching most of the 2nd.half, thought Mexico was the way better team, and that’s despite Colombia having the sell out, hometown advantage & the already well known player in Caicedro. Mexico won the Concacaf championship to qualify for this tournament, I wonder why they didn’t get seeded at the #1 spot for an group?
Two more groups conclude today. In Group C … USA v Paraguay and Spain v Morocco. Spain holds 1st with a win or draw, possibly even with a loss. USA holds 2nd with a win or draw, but drops (at least) to 3rd with a loss. 1st is likely out of reach, but one can dream. Let’s not discuss a 4th place finish. As mentioned above, C2 will play A2 (Mexico) in the R16. The winner will then (likely) play D1 (currently Germany) in the Quarterfinals. C3 will play A1 (host Colombia).
Group D has completed Matchday 3. Germany 0-1 South Korea Nigeria 4-0 Venezuela 6 Germany (+4) 6 Nigeria (+3) 4 South Korea (0) 1 Venezuela (-7) Germany cut it close, but held onto 1st.
Paraguay seems to have given up. It is 2-0 for the USA and Paraguay has shown nothing. The score at 12 minutes is 2-0 and it looks like the USA "could" score as many as 9 or 10 before it is all over. But i suspect that they will pull back a little once the goal count reaches 5 or so. Of course these are kids and something tiny could change things up.
I've been trying to make the Fox Sports streaming trick work, but after trying 2 browsers on my laptop, I was only able to get it to work on my phone. The weird thing was that as I was waiting to for the stream to load on my browser, Fox gave me a sting of scores-- 1st, 0-0 Then 0-1 Paraguay Then 1-1 Then 2-0 USA Quite a journey in only a couple of minutes.
You’re well-traveled. Spain also went ahead quickly, so I don’t think the final group placements are in doubt.
It happens all the time at all levels but i hate it when teams, like the USA is doing, kind of folds the tents as soon as they are up a couple of goals. Particularly if the goals came early. Paraguay is not playing better that they were at the 2 minute mark but the USA has lost a LOT of aggression. They seem to believe that two early goals will force Paraguay into just giving up. That ain't going to happen. The USA needs at least one more to be fairly sure of the win.
We added a third a short while ago, at 29’. Now nearing halftime … We have enough goals if somehow Spain loses. I agree that we should continue playing with purpose, to prepare the team to face and defeat Mexico in the R16. Edit USA 4-0 and cruising at HT Spain ahead 1-0 at HT
Paraguay has already given up. I wonder how they beat Morocco. They have shown nothing in this match to make me think they had a chance against any team in this tournament. Even Fiji would test them the way they are playing. But this is really young girls (young women) and they can play like world beaters one day and then play like third graders the next.
At the end of the Morocco match, I was worried that this team was one of those high-possession, low finishing US youth squads we occasionally get. Tonight's performance (6-0 in the 72nd right now) indicates otherwise.
There has been a PK review. The USA player was, maybe, fouled as they were entering the box from the left side. It really does not matter as even goal difference is already pretty much set for positioning. But, the anal retentive referee took at least 5 minutes to decide and then upheld her own decision and did not award the PK. While I am not sure if it was or was not a PK i am sure it was a foul. It could have been just outside the box. The ref chose to go with no call but wasted all that time on a meaningless decision. While I understand that the "new" VAR system is not perfect i see no reason a decision, particularly one that means noting to the result, It is almost criminal that the decisions take so long. Apparently, without true VAR support referees have no ability to think or make independent decisions. This tournament has, if nothing else, exposed this VAR compromise as worthless. i think VAR, in all forms, should be abandoned. It add nothing. It does not "get things right" and it adds nothing to the game. It is now 7-0 and Paraguay has shown nothing at all. (It should be 11 or 12 or more but the USA has not been good at finishing at all.
It's difficult to read anything in a victory vs Paraguay: whoever followed the youth tournaments in the last decade knows that they are one of the weakest national teams in South America and they don't compare well with the rest of the world either. CONMEBOL in women's football is way behind their men's counterpart and Paraguay in particular, in the few youth competitions they've qualified for, always had abysmal records (three losses at group stage by 1-4, 0-6 and 0-6 at U-20 WWC 2018, three losses at group stage by 1-6, 0-5 and 0-1 at U-17 WWC 2016, one draw by 1-1 vs New Zealand and two losses by 0-10 and by 1-7 at group stage at U-17 WWC 2014). I argue that they took advantage of the expansion of the U-20 WWC from 16 to 24 teams happening at this year's edition, that's good for women's football, but also allowed some historically very weak teams (at least at youth level) to show up. That somehow explains how Paraguay managed to anyway win a game, but they remain little more than cannon fodder.
Mex-USA round-of-16 will be a rematch of of last year’s Concacaf championship where Mexico won in OT, but we didn’t have Giselle in that do to her getting an red card in the 90th minute of the semis. Since then Giselle put a season in with Angel City & has imprinted herself all over the field in this tourney from her right side-side FB spot. So do feel we could have an edge this time around. US seems to have a very deep squad as the starting fwds vs Spain(Dudley & Suarez) have barely been heard from since. This time it was Pierta Tordin’s hat trick leading the way. She could be the smartest kid on the field too since she attends Princeton! lol. She previously played for Brazil’ u-20 NT, so could be a battle brewing on who’s going to get her on the senior stage! Adames showed some good playmaking skills vs Paraguay, which was expecting more from Sentnor(but she’s playing a bit out of position from her usual CAM at Utah Royals) Overall, if Gisele can keep showing mini Triple Expresso, star quality helped out by very & talented teammates, this team could go far. But usually this group age is dominated by the way more disciplined Asian squads(so I guess avoid them as much as possible!
True, but we've seen USYNT teams struggle with the patsy 4th team in the group where everyone else ran up their goal differential. The US might get a 1-0 or 2-0 win when they needed 7 or 8 to guarantee a good position in the next round.. The odd thing is that Paraguay didn't really give the impression of being cannon fodder. Spain only beat them 2-0 and they beat Morocco. My worry was just that US teams (even the senior women) can have these games where they dominate, but can't penetrate the opponent's goal, despite a ton of shots on goal. I'm happy they at least had one breakout game when they needed it.
With Group F play concluding, the KO R16 has almost completely taken shape. North Korea 2-0 Netherlands Argentina 1-0 Costa Rica ++++++++++++ USA v Mexico Germany v Argentina Brazil v Cameroon North Korea v Austria/Japan Japan/Austria v Nigeria Spain v Canada France v Netherlands Colombia v South Korea