Japan was a much stronger team in the first half, but it’s scoreless at halftime. I’m really impressed with Japan’s ball skills. They were giving Australia fits by moving the ball quickly and accurately.
Yes, Australia will need something special to get through. We’ll see how the second half goes, but Japan continue to impress with their speed, discipline, and accuracy.
Auatralia simply needs a set play to take advantage of its size and strength.
Is the World Cup (men and women’s) just becoming much lower scoring these days?
Switzerland’s 10 goals against Ecuador aside.
Here we go, another 1-0 win.
You don’t mind a 1-0 game if there were lots of interesting attacks on goal. In other words, two well-matched, skilled, and physical teams dueling it out.
In this case, Japan’s higher level of play and better technical skills eventually won the day. Unfortunately, the Aussies were scattered and disorganized. This left them playing boomball, blindly kicking the ball down the field and promptly turning the ball over to Japan more often than not. I know they were hoping that a kick way downfield would magically open up a breakaway goal opportunity (as well as taking pressure off of their defense for a few seconds), but how often does that work out in real life, especially when the pass is so uncontrolled?
No, you’ve got to control the ball better than that. I was hoping Australia would win, as that would have been interesting. Instead, I saw 10 field players with individual contributions, but not playing as a team. There frequently seemed to be miscommunication. Also, not much ball distribution from Australia’s midfielders. Where the heck were the midfielders? They didn’t seem to show up in the way one expects midfielders to be present.
The only thing that kept this from being a 3-0 game was the fact that Australia’s goalkeeper seemed to be quite competent.
I had hoped that Australia would win. That would have been interesting. But they weren’t up to that level of play. Maybe next time.
On the other side, Japan wasn’t quite as impressive as they usually are. This shows that they are beatable, but you have to admire their teamwork and skills and coaching.
Now for Canada and England. I hope this is interesting. I can’t say I favor one team over the other here.
I do believe that the technical term for that first England goal is a howler? And then 2-0 inside of 15 minutes.
An exciting game so far. Could go either way with these two well-matched teams. Gotta say I never expected it to be 2-0 inside of 25 minutes.
England look to be attempting to set the record for winning a game with the least possession ever. I understand that overwhelming desire to attempt to protect such a lead, but you can’t let the opposition take shot after shot like that.
Canada did fall victim to “miracle disease” for a brief period there where they either were forcing the ball to Sinclair, or booting a long bomb up the edge, hoping that it might drop on a striker, but for the most part after the 20th minute Canada was just taking it to England, who’s defending looking pretty inept to this untrained observer.
OK, that’s just blatant time wasting by England.
England remembers how to defend in the second half and barely give up anything.
Phew! I’m exhausted from watching that game. Great job by England.
USA v. Germany and England v. Japan? It will be like WWII, only kind of inverted.
I will hate the wait. Make them play tired. Who cares? It is all about the game & what I want… What are a few cramps and ruined legs, come on ladies, man up. ::: sheesh :::: snerk
My trick knee is telling me that England are going to win this.
They are going to have to be very succesful with their team defense. The Japanese are smaller quicker and technically better. England need to take advantage of their height and strength advantage and get a goal or two of of set plays and headers. Should be a fun game to watch.
Well, U.S. 2 Germany 0.
Frankly, as a referee for 25 years (albeit for 9-12 year old youth), I did’t like either penalty kick call; the one Germany got the US player had a hand on the German player but the German lady ‘sold’ it to the ref–there wasn’t a foul IMHO. For the US, it looked like the foul was either out of or on the edge of the box (where most refs will ‘pull’ it back outside), and I would have penalized the Germans for obstruction (an indirect free kick instead of direct).
That said, Germany never really looked dangerous despite what seemed like a definite possession advantage in the second half and the second US goal was a nice buildup and a great layoff to an oncoming player. So no complaints about the US going through.
Still not a lot of imagination in the US attack, but at least a little thinking this time. With that defense, it might just be enough.
We’ll see Sunday.
The US looked sharp and confident, and what’s most impressive is how toothless they made Germany seem.
We could still use sharper finishing, but as of right now we’re clearly a better team than either Japan or England.
Tangential to the subject at hand, another fine moment of footballing irony was the FIFA?/UEFA anti-racism banner before the City-CSKA Moscow Champions League tie in Moscow. In front of an empty stadium for a match played behind closed doors as punishment for racist behavior by the fans. :smack:
Anyway, the USA are through to the final–now we just need the Lionesses to hold up their end of the WW2-themed semis to have a Colonials vs. the Crown final 
Ah, the long-awaited 1812 rematch. Tell you what: You give us Ontario and we’ll let you burn down, say, Jersey City. Yes, we’re making out the best of this, and maybe the Canadians will object. So I guess if they’re too whiny about Ontario we can just take Quebec instead.