USA and France are the 2 favorites by most predictions and France is the host. US starts play on Tues. One of the world’s best players from Norway stayed home to protest the lack of support for the women’s team in Norway.
No one actually knows why she wont play because she refuses to say what it would take to make her return. And her teammates arent supporting her so there is likely much more to this issue than just Norway under-supporting their national team.
says here she has talked about her reasons for staying home but not all of them
A question about the USA-Thailand final score. Spoilered in case anyone plans on watching it later.
Is there an advantage to running up the score like that? I assume that, in group play, there’s some tie breaker that depends on goal differential so it’s accepted to keep scoring goals until the whistle blows. Because if not, you’d think the US would have kicked back after a while and rested their players.
The goal differential tie breaker is valid, but would have been more than enough had they stopped at six. Or eight. Or ten. Yes its a world cup, yes everyone wants to score, yes you want to win the individual Golden Boot trophy for most goals in the cup, yes you can only sub three players so eight must play the whole game, but show some decorum and respect for the game, and also for the other human beings on the other team whose only fault is not being as good at sportsball as you. The Dallas boys U-16 team that beat this team a year ago was content to score only 5;)
Would love to see France or England stomp them now, just for this.
There’s a point at which a team absolutely gubbing an obviously very inferior side becomes embarrassing. That threshold was comfortably passed in the USA vs Thailand match. But pro sports people are very competitive by nature, so hey.
This was the soccer version of “The Ugly American”. I fully expect another paragraph to be added to the Wikipedia article as a result of this game.
I’m already seeing US sites touting “the largest win in WC history, women or men!”, so if the aim was attention, they got it. And yes, in soccer sometimes its more insulting to the opponent to clearly not try than to win by a large margin. But there is absolutely NO WAY to condone scoring a goal in STOPPAGE TIME, for pete’s sake.
I can see arguments both ways. Obviously at some level it just seems cruel to turn the Thai women into some kind of footnote, the equivalent of being the hapless person forever immortalized being dunked on in an NBA poster.
That said, this isn’t little league or U-8 soccer where feelings are going to be hurt, this is the highest level of international competition. Would the Thai women have gotten more out of the game, learned more, grown more, if the USA players had stopped playing and just kicked the ball around the field once they were up 6? Up 8? Up 10? (And note the seemingly-sincere hugs and handshakes after the match was over, it’s not like our players were bullying our taunting or mocking theirs.)
Furthermore, there’s the psychological message this sends to the rest of the field. When we face Sweden (in the group) or France/Germany/Japan/Canada in the knockout stages, we know and they know that when we and they were matched up against a vastly outclassed opponent in the group stages, they were able to beat their opponent, whereas we DESTROYED ours. There’s a team this tournament that everyone else should fear, and it ain’t France and it ain’t Germany. An important message for both our players and theirs (assuming it doesn’t lead to overconfidence).
And, worth mentioning, it’s not impossible that the goal differential does actually matter. Sweden will presumably beat Thailand. They will presumably beat Thailand by a lot. Suppose we got up 5-0 and then pulled back on the gas, and then Sweden came out and annihilated Thailand 7-0, as they perhaps could, and suppose we both beat Chile by the same score. Then suddenly we need to beat Sweden, not just draw them, to be the #1 seed out of the group (which of course we presumably want).
And, finally, there’s something to be said for not developing the bad habit of ever loafing around. When you’re on the field in the spotlight of the highest level of international play, if you just reflexively give 100% at all times, well, that’s probably a good habit to be in; and a bad habit to get out of.
If this result offends you, then blame FIFA for making the tournament field so large, or allocating qualifying slots in such a fashion, that a mismatch like this happened at all. Don’t blame the USA team for playing hard for 90 minutes plus. (And if a goal in stoppage time offends you, then blame FIFA and the ref for not just blowing the whistle at 90 minutes even, as the commentators I was listening to seemed to expect.)
If you don’t condone scoring a goal in stoppage time, what about with a minute left in regulation? Two minutes? Ten minutes? The real “crime” if there is one is that they played any stoppage time at all.
The world has gone weird when I hear the complaint “the score was too high in that soccer match”. :smack:
You don’t know this. Never take anything for granted. And if the US tanks the next 2 matches, they may need all 13 goals to advance. They were correct to get as many as they could. Now, the celebrations once they hit about 5 or 6 goals may have been a bit much, but they have to score every goal they can.
Are the Thai women complaining?
Complete and utter fucking bullshit. Yeah, you’re not going hard into 50/50 challenges late in a game if you’re comfortably winning, but you absolutely run the score up. Sweden is going to stomp them too. Do you want to finish 1st or not?
How patronizing to the Thai players “oooh, they’re just poor helpless nobodies. Why doesn’t the US give them some free shots on goal?”
You want Mallory Pugh, Rose Lavelle, Lindsay Horan, or Sam Mewis to avoid scoring their first ever WC goals to avoid vicariously offending pundits? FUCK THAT.
ETA Rapinoe’s celebration was over the top. I think everyone else was perfectly fine.
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It’s not the USWMNT problem that Thailand sucks. FIFA should have a system set up where bad teams like this are filtered out. This is the World Cup not a friendly exhibition match. You never underestimate your opponent and you don’t take the foot off the pedal.
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I’ve been hearing all day they should have toned down the celebrations. What does everyone want? For the USWNT to hang their heads in shame? Walk over and apologize to Thailand after every goal? These ladies have worked hard and waited 4 years to get here and were very emotional. I don’t see why they should “tone down” anything.
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I’ve noticed almost everyone complaining about the celebrations were men. I can’t help but to think there’s some sort of bias with these complaints. If their favorite NFL team was demolishing their opponents 49-0 and the players danced in the end zone after every touch down they’d love it. And I wonder if we would have heard the same complaints if this was the Men’s team.
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You mean this “humble” Canada team?
I said “most” not “all”. I’ve been scouring Twitter too.
Canada are 25/1 to win the World Cup. I imagine these ladies aren’t going to score 13 goals against anybody so really who are they to dictate the conduct of a potential champion?
They related with Thailand as eventual losers and lets be honest they are jealous of their southern neighbors success.
BTW the USWNT shook hands, hugged, and comforted the Thailand ladies after the game. Its not like they thumbed their noses at them and did a conga line off the field after the match was over. If Thailand doesn’t like it, put a competitive team on the field. If they can’t, then FIFA needs to put a system in place where this sort of mismatch cannot happen.
Watching the highlights, I’m struck at how terrible the Thai goalkeeper was. The majority of USA shots were perfectly block-able. It’s like she couldn’t, or wouldn’t, stop the ball unless the ball happened to come within mere inches of her hands.
In 1974, in the Men’s World Cup, Zaire got thumped by Yugoslavia 9-0. 16 years later, a qualifier from the Africa section (Cameroon) beat Argentina, the reigning World Champions, in the opening match of the tournament and went to the QFs, where they were a little unfortunate to lose to England - who needed 2 penalties to beat them. Lest we forget, in 2014, Brazil got towelled in a World Cup semi. Bad results can happen, especially once one team has the other psychologically beaten.
In my view, FIFA explicitly should not have a system filtering these countries out of the main tournament - though it is clear that the tournament is not yet ready for expansion to 32 teams, matching the men’s World Cup. These slots give Asian countries something to aim for - a spot at the World Cup - which helps grow the game more than local competitions will do, especially in the minds of young Thai girls who now have a reason to watch a tournament that they may otherwise have ignored (they may even be inspired by the US team rather than their own - if England is any judge, the number of small kids wandering around in Messi shirts shows that they’re not that bothered necessarily about the performance of their own country - they just want to be inspired). This is part of the development of the sport. It’s unfortunate that Thailand are on the receiving end but, in the long run, this should raise standards. Closing the shop will not.
You weren’t kidding. Fox Sports highlights of all 13 goals. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-oH8w3kvYE
Poor positioning by the keeper for many of the goals, and she was hung out to dry by her back line for quite a few of the others. There were a few of the highlights where I was mentally yelling at the keeper to get off her line already and break up that pass. Get her hands up, get her feet moving, get her head in the game already. Didn’t look like there was much direction from the keeper to the defense, unlike what I’ve seen from many of the top men’s team’s keepers.
Deer in headlights looks on the defenders, even early, before the goal barrage really got going. I’m surprised watching the highlights that the score was so low early, and I wonder if fatigue was part of the reason the goals came like rain in the second half?
Surprising lack of speed for many of the shots the US took. A lot of them looked like off-balance caroms. I don’t watch much women’s soccer, so I don’t know if that’s the norm. Nifty footwork by Morgan on a few of the highlights.