Yeh to be fair I can’t be overly objective on the quality of yesterday’s game. Finals are often a didappointment though as the occasion likely gets to the players and ‘playing it safe’ rules over risk taking. My comment about comparisons between men’s and women’s sport just reflects the frustration I’ve felt around the fact it seems to be the first thing people bring up when discussing women’s matches and would never be brought up after a men’s match. Wasn’t really aimed at you so apologies if I was a bit aggressive.
That’s fine. FWIW I do try to take each sport I watch on it’s own merits and take enjoyment where I find it.
I also feel entitled to criticise a performance in the time-honoured fashion of armchair sporting coaches everywhere. The England men’s team have had years of adequate victories off the back of pretty dismal performances which bored me to tears and can’t recall too many times when people held back from saying so.
To do so now, just because they are women or just because they won doesn’t sit right with me.
They have ridden their luck a tad at times (other teams missing early chances which would have completely changed the course of a game), but overall played very well in the tournament. But you’re right, they shouldn’t be immune to criticism. I think a problem in the final was two well matched sides mostly cancelling each other out.
As for the men… we finally seem to have the forward players to play an attacking game but the style is still geared towards not getting beaten. Even last year, where they made the final and did play pretty well in spells, it felt like Southgate kept the handbrake on.
There’s an article about how the last 11 minutes was a master class in time wasting by England. Not just the usual “dribble to the corner” excitement, but also taking their time during throw-ins, substituting right before a German throw-in and taking their time coming off and on the field, and the goalie holding onto the ball for 26 seconds during a goal kick.
Nothing can be done about keeping possession of the ball in the corner, but the other stuff seems out of bounds to me. Why doesn’t the ref just add all that other wasted time to the end? Isn’t that what stoppage time is about?
(I don’t really understand why they don’t just use a real clock, which stops when play stops, at least for subs, corners, and goal kicks, but I’m just an American)
It really was, and you could see the Germans absolutely fuming about it. But them’s the rules.
I was going to comment on the German players engaging in a fair amount of pushing toward the end but looking at the stats from the match overall including fouls and cards, they’re quite evenly matched: 22 fouls and 3 yellow cards for Germany vs 20 fouls and four yellow cards (including the one for shirt removal) for England. In fact possession, shots, shots on target, passes etc - all close enough to indicate a pretty even match.
Is the song It’s Coming Home going to have its lyrics amended?
“It Just Came Home?”
I did wonder what Baddiel and Skinner were up to today.
Isn’t the ref supposed to keep track of stoppage time? This is from some random article I found:
Some referees prefer to use a more deterministic approach to stoppage time, giving a certain amount of time for each different type of stoppage: 45 seconds to a minute for goal celebrations, 5-10 seconds for a foul, 15-30 seconds for a substitution, a minute for an injury that requires treatment, and the like. That method isn’t always as accurate as a stopwatch-based method, but it can be easier for the referee to keep track of himself over the run of play.
If it’s up to the ref anyway and one team is obviously wasting time with corners, subs, and goal kicks, the ref could easily just negate that. I guess my question is, why does the ref allow that kind of bullshit?
Baddiel and Skinner have done a revised version for the women’s team.
(But i’m not going to look it up !)
There is a rule that says a keeper has to release the ball 6 seconds after gaining controlled possession with the hands, otherwise an indirect free kick will be awarded. This rule must have been around, what, 15 years (??) and has been enacted precisely zero times despite being broken many times each game.
What if a keeper holds the ball for 5 seconds, drops it, picks up again, drops, picks up again, etc.?
Although an opposing player would probably hang around the keeper to pounce on the ball any time it’s dropped.
A.k.a. bouncing it. Which she did.
I can only recall seeing it enforced once, but it was a big one: called against Canada late in the 2012 Olympics Women’s semi-final, allowing the US to tie the score at three before winning in the last minute of extra time. One of my all-time favourite matches, even though the wrong team won. 
They’re allowed to bounce it (never quite worked out why to be honest!), but not drop it deliberately and pick it up again. That would also be an indirect free kick. Bouncing it doesn’t re-set the 6 second count though.
The irony of a German football team complaining about gamesmanship is duly noted. Were the positions reversed they would be doing (and have done) exactly the same
In that game a Canadian player stomped on Carli Lloyd’s face while she was lying on the ground. I don’t feel to bad about any wrong doing in the 6-second call.
Abby Wambach earned the FK too. The keeper was holding it long a lot of times and Wambach stood next to the ref and counted out the seconds. Sure, the ref could have said “fuck off, I’m not calling it” but she didn’t.
Also one of my favorite games.