2015 Women's World Cup

Really enjoying the Sweden/Nigeria game right now. Nigeria missed a sitter that would have drawn them level again.

Nigeria's Miss

Looks like a turf-related knee injury there. Unsurprising but sad to see.

The pitch looks like a chalk board.

yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaassssssssssss!!!!!!!

RedOranje wrote:Looks like a turf-related knee injury there.  Unsurprising but sad to see.

Actually I hope they are able to sue the FIFA after all for the pitches if they can somehow prove the astroturf is the reason for these injures.

Turf strikes again.

In a development that will surprise absolutely noone:

Jeff Carlisle ‏@JeffreyCarlisle 9 minutes ago
FIFA execs not in the house. #FIFAWWC #uswnt

Australia throwing everything they can at the US early on and very nearly in the lead for it. Have to wonder if they can maintain this intensity though, as the US tend to grow into matches as time progresses.

That was a good save by Hope Solo, btw. (No matter what one should think of her otherwise - she's good in her sport.)

Rapinoe scores the 1:0 in the 12th minute with the first shot on goal. Efficient.

Gut punch for Australia. Definitely the better side in the first 10 minutes but it just takes that one moment, and that one slice of luck, for things to change.

1:1 now! Very deserved!

Yes! Australia looking brilliant.

Deserved equalizer. The US defense has not looked good so far, to be honest. Nor has the match as a whole; it's been almost all long-balls.

Australia look like they're gonna give up a stupid goal. Suspect defense.

That should have been a goal, I think.

Worry for Australia is whether their stamina can hold out to keep this tempo and high press up all match.

These American commentators ugh.....

I'm looking forward to the 2nd half!

By the way, even though Switzerland are debutants in the World Cup, their match against Japan should be very interesting, too.

Switzerland are coached by Martina Voss-Tecklenburg, a former German international like Silvia Neid, who won lots as player and also won the Champions League as coach of debutants FCR Duisburg. Since she took over as coach of the Swiss Nati, she developed the team greatly.

Most of the Swiss starters play in the German Bundesliga, and the Nati went through the World Cup qualification with 9 wins and 1 draw, only allowing 1 goal against (they had Denmark and Iceland in their group).

BBC have been really good with the WC so far.

Pseudo wrote:These American commentators ugh.....

Don't they have enough former internationals who could lend some proper insights? The German stations ARD and ZDF hired people like Nia Künzer (former world champion of 2003) or Kim Kulig (injured current player) who are very knowledgeable.

RedOranje wrote:Worry for Australia is whether their stamina can hold out to keep this tempo and high press up all match.

The German commentator just explained that the Australian team specifically trained on artifical turf since the beginning of the year to be fit for the conditions in Canada. They even outfitted a stadium in Canberra with that stuff to have proper training facilities there.

rwo power wrote:

Pseudo wrote:These American commentators ugh.....

Don't they have enough former internationals who could lend some proper insights? The German stations ARD and ZDF hired people like Nia Künzer (former world champion of 2003) or Kim Kulig (injured current player) who are very knowledgeable.

You'd think so, but at the moment they have 3 commentators working the match, 2 men and 1 woman. As I was saying to RG on Skype, the only reasoning that I can think of for that is some type of archaic sexism; like they think "Well, it IS a women's match so perhaps we should allow a woman to commentate, but we certainly can't have less than 2 men on it or else they won't be able to properly do the job..."

And 2:1 for the USWNT - Christen Press

And when I checked the correct spelling for Christen Press, I saw that Cameroon already scored 5 against Ecuador.

RedOranje wrote:"Well, it IS a women's match so perhaps we should allow a woman to commentate, but we certainly can't have less than 2 men on it or else they won't be able to properly do the job..."

*sighs*  Ah well, in German TV you usually have 1 host and 1 pundit. The commentator of the match usually is behind the scenes. As the host here is male and pundit and commentator are female, it is the other way round here. And the people with the football knowledge are the ladies ^^

(Oh, and by the way - in Germany the commentator is always commenting alone during the match. Host and pundit talk before the match, during the break and after the match, often doing interviews, too.)

USA 3:1 Australia, great goal by Megan Rapinoe

Great goal