Cricket-Match-Special ... A forum for discussion

Gingerfinch wrote:Are Japan the team to beat?

looks like it

The Dutch march on

next up is Sweden knocking out the USA........ maybe

If they want to stay in the tournament, the States will have to play much, much better than they have at any stage up to now.

Sweden look hungry this time

well.... I've not seen that before. A penalty shootout decided by VAR!

Terrible match. USA were the better side, but only because Sweden were so passive. They relied entirely on their goalie keeping the US out and hoping to get a free kick on the edge of the box. It was a really strange tactic.

USA had 2 chances to win the shoot out and for both they blazed it high or wide. Keeper got a hand to the final Sweden pen and seemed to have made a double save, but the ball was adjudged to have crossed the line on the way down.

Sweden through, but they won't scare anyone based on that performance

I found it surprising that world no.1 v world no.3 could be such a low quality, dull game

Rapinoe might yet rue laughing all the way back to her team mates after blasting over the top in the first of their missed pens

That was a shootout and a half. Literally. Lot of nerves, I guess, but as an England supporter it's hard to me critical of fluffed penalties by other countries in shootouts

Japan and Netherlands surely favourites in this half of the draw now.

Results so far have been all over the place : rankings seem to mean nothing as fancied teams have been thrown out left right and centre.

Obviously the world of women's football is getting much more equal , rather than a few outstanding nations dominating. From what I've been able to see so far you'd be mad to try and predict anything from here, no ? Japan have been excellent , certainly. But the likes of Spain go from raining goals one end - to the other . Hosts Australia made a mess of the Nigeria game but then murdered Canada...

Anyone's guess who makes even the semis from here...

well England are making a mess of the Nigeria game too

I don't really understand why the pen decision was overturned, but it wouldn't have done Nigeria justice had they gone in 1-0 down. They've played england off the park in the first half. Sarina has a lot of thinking to do

It's my favourite kind of football too.... high press, 100mph football. Not fair that Nigeria are allowed to have 15 players on the pitch though

the tv coverage is annoying the hell out of me though. The commentary is running slightly ahead of the picture, so Nigeria hit the bar even before the player had released the shot. I've had to switch off the sound

Why did James do that? Idiot!

Oh dear what on earth got into James then ? Shades of Beckham v Argentina...

Struggling enough in this match already . That might just sink them.

Phew!

Some terrible pens and some brilliant ones!

Phew !

The men might be jealous of that effort...

Burglary, really , after that game. Will take it though. Maybe need one get out of jail card in a tournament ?

I only got to see the first half, but that sounds like the great train robbery.

I'm trying hard to think of anything more English than going out of a WC at the first KO game on pens, with a player sent off, after a nerve wracking 0-0 to a team ranked 30 or 40 places behind them. Fortunately these are not the men...... the men would have lost that shoot out

I also note that Stanway missed the first pen. Now this seems to happen a lot. the person taking the first one has to stand there for an age whilst the ref talks to the keepers for 10 mins reminding them of what they already know. I can't help but think that the first player up should just stay back with everyone else until the ref has finished with all that malarky. That standing around over the ball for ages just affords the head demons more time to do their worst.

If either Columbia or Jamaica needed a tactical demonstration of how to neutralise England, then they just had one, so Englad will need to sort it out. I have no idea hat happened after half time, but in the first half it looked to me as though England were so worried about Nigeria's counter attack that they didn't dare commit players forward, so England's 3 attackers just got blocked out by NIgeria's 7 defenders. Nigeria always seemed to have 7 players in defence and 7 in attack. They must have had superb fitness to keep that up for the whole game

one of the more sensible things I heard during the half time analysis was someone suggesting that the top teams, particularly the European ones, spend perhaps too much time playing each other instead of arranging friendlies against African and Asian teams who play in a completely different way.

I aso saw a stat that said that Nigeria had more shots at the England goal in that first half than any other team that England have played since Sarina took charge.... and in that time they've played and beaten Spain, Sweden, Canada, Germany and the US

Nigeria scared the sh1t out of England today