Matter of time?
I think the final is England’s game. Spain are a great side, obviously, but I just think England have a hunger and a belief coming off the back of winning the euros just a year ago. I’ve always felt nervous watching England men, never quite believing they will win when it matters. I don’t feel that about the women.
And if it goes to penalties, England will win as I just think they have the mental strength for it, something I would never say about England men’s team.
I agree with all that. Put simply, they are in the habit of winning, and that’s a hard habit for another team to break. Of course one bad decision or bit of bad luck can also play a part.
That’s football! But I also think that plays to England’s strengths - they won’t get derailed and start to panic by a slip up that takes them behind, Spain might not have the resilience (that comes from experiencing success) to dig deep. Plus England knocked them out of the euros - that could be quite a niggle for them.
I’m really not sure. Tough one to call for me. Spain completely outplayed England for most of the Euros game last year but didn’t have the killer instinct. But then Spain have had a load of players walk out due to the manager apparently.
I didn’t watch the Euros, but looks like the Spain-England match was pretty even. Spain slightly ahead on xG. Looking at the lineups that day, Spain was missing the best player in the world (Putellas). And while she hasn’t been starting yet, Paralluelo has been fantastic for Spain and she wasn’t at the Euros either.
Should be a good game that could go either way, but if I had to choose I’d lean Spain.
Spain passes beautifully but like many teams sometimes struggles to score. A protest against the current Spanish coach led to something like fifteen top players to decline to play. Only three of these players were offered a World Cup spot. One wonders if not having many of their previous first string players will affect things. Despite this, they’ve gone further than they ever have and looked far stronger than Sweden, which was the highest ranked team left in the final four.
England looked anemic in some early games but very strong against the Matildas. Should be a good game.
I’m cheering 100% for England. I would have been very happy for Australia since they are hosting, but in the final I want England all the way.
I wonder who the fans will be rooting for. In their last two games, against Colombia and Australia, the crowd in the stadium was very much in favor of England’s opponents. Will Australian fans be pulling for England or Spain in the final, or will there be enough visiting fans in attendance to tilt the crowd one way or the other?
Not a cat in hell’s chance that an Australian crowd backs England at anything (says the cynical Englishman).
I think crowd favour is a bit hard to predict. There’ll certainly be a large ‘anyone but England’ contingent because Australia and England have a HUGE sporting rivalry - more in cricket and rugby than anything else, but I’m sure it crosses over. But there’s also a LOT of Australians with British heritage (the sporting rivalry is pretty good natured, by and large), and also a lot of Brits who live in Sydney. So I’m hoping support will be fairly even.
Whatever happens, it will be raucous. But none of the vicious nonsense you get in the men’s game. You can see that from the crowds - English and Australian fans mixed together in the previous game. That would NEVER happen in the men’s game.
Bronze medal game not bad. Sweden did better on the limited scoring opportunities. Neither team really used the sides and corners to develop their attack. One hesitates to overgeneralize this but have noticed this in a number of games. One cheap penalty in the area, successfully taken, in a fairly physical game. Australia had the crowd’s heart, but did not play quite as well as Sweden.
Crowds are slowly getting bigger.
Why was America so dominant back in 1991 or so? Is it because we offered university women’s soccer…and no one else did?
It seems like Europe would have had strong women’s soccer comparatively.
Possibly. While I know little about university sports outside of North America, there is also an “opportunity cost” view. If you are a talented general athlete, what sports will be most worth specializing in? I would guess this is influenced by “national” priority (eg: Canadians value hockey), competition (what can you become good at? Win accolades?), remuneration (college scholarships and entry advantages, professional leagues, publicity), availability of junior leagues or barriers to access, and enjoyment.
Soccer is a team sport. With a few exceptions, you don’t generally benefit much from being very tall or muscular. Being smaller is not a big disadvantage. Most professional female soccer players are around 5’7”. With twenty players on a team there are many positions.
Yes. The USWNT was dominant because we sort of cared and nobody else cared at all. Europe has a better coaching/tactical pipeline; catching up was inevitable if they paid attention to the women’s game and that’s what we’re seeing.
Y’all up, or am I watching this by myself?
Spain looking far superior, but England are outnumbered in midfield and getting exposed on the wings. They probably should have sat back, kept it tight, and counter attacked - that was how Japan beat them 4-0. Might be a bit late now to counter attack as Spain are winning and have no reason to push forward if England set up like that.
It’s a really good game. But after the Spanish goal I’m a bit concerned about England’s ability to defend the short passing game. Spain does it so very well.
I don’t think ENG has much opportunity to counter because of ESP’s ability to control the ball–with no particular difficulty–into their final third. ENG is going to have to pressure them into midfield mistakes.
The ref is taking so long and flustered because she was standing right there and missed the call. She desperately wanted to rule it no handball, no penalty.