There seems to be a lot of suspicion around John Herdman, who is now the Toronto FC coach……
“Hey Canada do you mind if we take a look at your drone footage? We’ll give you one thousand Canadian dollars for it and won’t say a word.”
The IOC is looking.
The fan cutaways are sometimes not live. In the background of one there were no players on the field.
Spoiler
After a gutsy and dramatic win over France, Canadian women can now advance with a win over Colombia. Happy for the players. It is the coach and other staff that are the villains imo
Again, over-expectations are not needed.
Not really saying anything about what is different from past years. I think the difference is that when someone goes “out of their lane,” teammates are filling in the hole created. That is caused by players caring about their team and their teammates, which may have been missing in the past due to the old ladies creating cancer in the locker room.
USWNT has been impressive and I assume this is without drone technology….
No one wants to meet them in the next round.
I’ll be impressed with a defeat of Spain, which, assuming the expected, will occur in the semifinals.
Wiki is my go-to. Someone/something updates it.
Oh, and I fucked it up.
USA is in Group B, expected to win it.
Spain is in Group C, expected to win it.
So, won’t see each other until the finals.
If Spain falls down to runner-up of Group B, will meet USA in quarters.
USA up 6 goals over GER, up 8 goals over AUS. AUS will have to win by 4 goals over USA to trigger next tiebreaker.
GER will have to pound ZAM to make up the goal difference on USA to win the group, assuming USA lose to AUS.
Thanks. If Canada beats Colombia they may well play Germany in the next round.
Maybe some degenerate gambler can help me, but how does one win a bet for a “draw” in the USWNT v GER match? When is the “draw” determine? At Full Time, or at the end of Added Extra Time?
I think full time.
Strong praise from Hayes re Girma:
Wonder how much of a home country/state discount she gives to SD, and how much a real team with real money and real risks/rewards (pro/rel/UEFA WCL) would pay her.
The old, “they don’t play football like we want them to so we can win,” whine.
“We conceded four goals from a team that, for me, doesn’t play football,” a frustrated Hermoso said after the game.
While Hermoso admitted her team “did not play well,” she added: "They [Brazil] study us, they know how to hurt us, play off our backs. That’s not football to me.
“I don’t like that kind of football. Obviously, they win minutes, they make you lose time, and for them, that was worth it. They’re in the final, and we’re going for bronze.”
Hayes, on Olympic Football:
To that end, Hayes also suggested that Olympics organizers take a hard look at the scheduling of the soccer tournament ahead of the 2028 Summer Games in Los Angeles.
The U.S. and Brazil will play their sixth match in 17 days on Saturday – including two that went to extra time – and had to travel between cities on several occasions as much of the Olympic tournament was staged in cities outside Paris.
Not sure what to tell her. The Olympics are 15 days long. I guess they could start even earlier than the Wednesday before Opening ceremonies.
Oh, and have fun with that not flying to different cities. France is tiny compared with where the LA Games will play soccer. Potential sites that are closest:
LA Coliseum (USC; will be used for Opening Ceremonies and Athletics, but that will be the first week instead of the traditional final week, so that the swimmin’ hole can be constructed in SoFi after the opening ceremonies (both sites, Cranky wanted a piece).
SoFi (LAR, LAC; will be used for Swimming, actually)
BMO (LAFC; will host the football finals. Odd choice, given that it seats only 22,000; the 1984 Final at the Rose Bowl was seen in front of 100,000+.)
StubHub (LA Galaxy)
Rose Bowl (UCLA)
San Diego (former Charger Stadium)
Las Vegas
Stanford
Cal Berkeley
Fresno State
Glendale AZ (AZ Cardinals)
In 1984, the Football (Men only, women were barefoot in the kitchen back then) was played in two pairs of venues: Stanford and Rose Bowl on one coast; Harvard and Navy on the other coast. They played every other day. Knockouts on the West Coast. All semi-finalists played 6 matches over 14 days.
Next up: World Cup.
They do have to qualify, though. Even a prior WWC winner didn’t qualify via CONCACAF and had to play some other Confederation’s team.
Wondering if Horan will even be around. She seemed to be the slowest USW out there. I say, anyone over 30 by then will have to prove themselves. This isn’t the USW Basketball team, after all, with their cliquety cliques. The USW soccer team actually has some competition and cannot leave top-rate athletes home “just because.”
Hayes need to do better with substitutes, trusting the second-team players to step up so the first-team players can rest. Girma looked addled in the beginning and no one was backing her up.
Do they expand the roster for the Olympics given the compactness of the timing? I was watching the replay and they were talking about how Brazil had used a lot of different starters while 9 USWNT players started every game. Seems like a better coach would shuffle more players rather than ask that the tournament be lengthened to give her players more resting time.
The coach is new and acknowledged that she isn’t yet familiar with all the players on the team. As a result she relied heavily on the subset that she does know. Presumably that won’t be the case going forward.
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