2015 Woman's WC

Win the match, check. Win the group, check. Get Alex Morgan some much needed playing time, check. All positives, but not playing good enough yet to win it all. At least they did play much better against a plucky Nigeria, but the passing in the final third hasn't been good enough. No more excuses about the field turf, yes it sucks, but everyone else is playing on it so adjust. The biggest cause for optimism is Alex is running very well and you get the feeling one goal could open the floodgates for her.

 

Agree Joe, I didn't think we played at all well last night, but got the result we needed. I'm concerned about our playing style moving forward. We almost exclusively look to force a turnover and spring a quick attack over the top of the defense. Our build up play was just about non-existent until Nigeria had a player sent off.

 

Agree with the above, our play & lack of scoring is very concerning and has me thinking we won't be contending for the title. Like Joe said though, that can all change in a heartbeat if Alex Morgan gets going.

 

It ain't pretty, but it's all the result they needed. Nothing's ever easy for the national squads. And he ain't heavy...

 

Had a great time in Montreal. Made it to the Brazil v Spain match and had a lot of fun. Not the best place to watch a football match. Hell it made Gillette Stadium look like a soccer specific stadium. But a good time none the less. We were near a lot of Brazil supporters and that helped the atmosphere. Seemed the Brazil supporters out numbered the Spain supporters by quite a bit. I wore my Fulham 07-08 away kit, same one in my profile pic.

Ride up was interesting, we got our car searched right before the Canadian boarder by the US looking for the two escaped prisoners from NY. Quite intense seeing the walk around with automatic weapons.

The U2 show was amazing as well. Walking to the show we walked by the Brazil team bus and was standing feet from Marta.

I have posted some pictures to Facebook but you don't need a FB account to look at them.

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/...080.1073741854.1427989281&type=1&l=686519836c

 

Thanks for sharing Jim!! Time for the knockout stages. I see there is some bad blood between the US & Columbia. Ironic there is a whole bunch of smack talking coming out if the Columbian camp about how the American team talks too much...huh?

 

There is an old expression; 'it's better to win ugly than to lose pretty.' While this style should be enough to get past China on Friday, can Jill Ellis make the necessary adjustments to raise the level of play for either Germany or France? Watching and listening to her doesn't inspire confidence that she'll implement anything else than a game plan Tony Pulis or Fat Sam would approve of.

 

Friday will be a challenge. Missing Rapinoe and Holiday due to an accumulation of yellows. (still a great band name).

 

"Missing Rapinoe and Holiday" or "an accumulation of yellows." Both work for me

 

Tangent: my first thoughts after watching the UCL Final on Fox was, after not having cable or a login for FS1, I had forgotten how truly terrible all of Fox's announcers are. There's almost no redeeming factors for any of them.

And here they have the UCL, WWC, WC, Gold Cup, Euros...am I forgetting any others??

 

Aren't they getting the Bundesliga this fall? Will they use there own announcers or does the Bundesliga have there own English commentators?

 

Nope, that pretty much covers it TImmy.

Don't have near the problem w/'that guy' as the fine gentleman from San Antonio, it's the 3 person booth that to me is a worse issue (pick a sport, it never works). Tony Dicicco did lead the WNT to an Olympic Gold Medal, World Cup title, and then came out of retirement to coach the U20's to a WC win in 2008 (have to assume there are quite a few players on this roster from that team). In other words, the greatest women's coach the US has ever had, and it's the coach in him that is leading him to be overly-critical. To be fair though every other analyst worth listening to (Foudy, Mitts, Wynalda) are having the same issues about how the ladies are playing.

 

I haven't seen a whole lot of the matches, but I did catch the majority of the Colombia match. The problem that I had with the announcer was that he was so overconfident in spite of how the team has been playing as of late. He kept saying that the score was not what it was expected to be. We only scored 1 goal (and none when up a player for over 20 minutes) in the previous two matches!

 

The England factor is seeping into the purview of the USWNT. Everything should be better than it is, and it's the team's God-given right to win each match. However, that doesn't make if #$&%@ so.
I'm thankful to have a national team that on any given day, will be the best team on the pitch. But, I live in California, and the sun shines. Ol' Blighty has a chip for a reason, the US doesn't need that. My little girl and I have plans to watch the US gut out a victory vs. China on Friday. And according to Lou Reed and myself, everything is alright...