Women's World Cup Final Open Thread

Alex Morgan is an angel.

Not according to Jay Mariotti.

Les go ’Merica!

god bless America, and f Jay Mariotti

similar looking story so far… Slack passing. Hope we don’t get punished for it.

All sweetish, no finish.

we need to turn this dominance into goals

Interesting reading, this:

Sorry. Don’t know how to post the link. Fox Sports: Storybook Cup victory will hurt in long run

Aaaagggghhhhh - Wambach hits the post!

we really need a goal - big danger of getting hit on the break here

We need to get a goal quickly, otherwise it is going to get very nervy. I imagine we will do something to get an extra player forward as try to press the advantage. Hopefully we will see Alex Morgan too.

apparently I have the magic touch

alex Morgan!

Dang, Hand. FTW

shit. This is what happens when you don’t make your dominance count.

Really poor choices by Kreiger on the back line late in regulation. You’ve gotta love the Japan creativity though.

Amazing fucking header. Alice Morgan’s cross was fantastic.

abby wambach’s golden forehead!!!!

I think Foudy just advocated cutting off Wambach’s head and bronzing it upon her retirement.

Looks like they’ve got a star in Morgan.

Wow, there has been some Keystone Cops action in front of the US goal box today.

this is what insiders refer to as “squeaky bum time”

What the hell.

fuckbiscuits.

Going to kicks. We just can’t win easy.

These announcers leave a lot to be desired.

Wow - awful performance by the US kickers.

We pissed that one away.
 
Good deal for Japan - that country needed something to feel good about.

terrible PAs. But the US lost the game well before that.

Two one-goal leads, innumerable scoring opportunities early . . . they just didn’t get the job done.

These motherfuckers had me down for a $190 tab. Hamburger steaks and Coors light? As if. Beat them down quite a bit, plus no tip.

Oh. The result of the game sucked ass, but as it played out I thought, we don’t find ourselves on the losing end of these often. NOW IS OUR TIME.

We should have won the game in regular time. We should have won the game in extra time. We had no business participating in the determinant.

I blame Toadvine. I just do.

So much for the audacity of Hope.

I’m probably in the minority here, but sometimes I think that British English terminology gets confused for mandatory soccer jargon. For example, I think Julie Foudy sounds silly as an American sitting in the booth talking about a player’s “pace”. We’re Americans, we say “speed”. I don’t think that pace (in the way that soccer commentators use it) is a soccer term, I think it’s a British term. I could be wrong though, which is why I’m asking for opinions. Are terms like “pace”, “pacey”, and “nil” part of the official soccer jargon and thus applicable throughout the English-speaking world, or are they just the British way of saying “speed”, “fast”, and “zero”, respectively?

Oh yeah, tough loss. For some reason (maybe because I’m a front-runner) I find the US Women much easier to root for than the US Men.

Girls like Alex Morgan being much easier on the eyes than Lando and co. doesn’t hurt, either.

Triple post!

I only saw the highlights. It seemed that the US tried to pass their way through the Japanese. When you have 2 strikers standing 4-5 inches taller than their markers, why don’t you use the obvious advantage… get the ball in the mixer (English phrase).

Despite posessing neither, my preference is for pace over speed. Pacey isn’t really in use over here and nil is used in all sports, not just football.

4 s’s in possession

That was heartbreaking. Really proud of our ladies though, it was one of those days we just couldn’t convert in front of the net. EnglishAg, we did play in the air quite a bit but the Japanese did a great job getting in the way of Wambach and our other big targets and just not letting them get to crosses.

I’m about as happy as I could be for another team to have won it though, Japan had a great run in the tournament, played a clean match, and won with class. The goal to tie the game from Sawa was also just brilliant.

HoD would you care to opine on why the US women are so much more competitive on the world stage that the US men? I am only a casual fan and found myself wondering yesterday.

Seems like the same challenges that hamper the men would also apply to the women. Obviously not.

Title IX is a big part of it, as it gave women in this country access to a higher level of coaching, facilities and opportunities than women in many other countries. Women’s soccer was/is often one of the sports adopted by schools in order to make up numbers against men’s sports, thanks to its relatively large team size and low running costs.

That advantage has eroded somewhat as other countries have built up their women’s professional leagues and infrastructure, but US college soccer remains a leading environment for the development of female players (both for the US and other countries’ national teams).

Men’s college soccer doesn’t enjoy that same status in the world game, and the overall level of competition is a lot higher, so it’s a more difficult environment overall.

Also there is no professional baseball or football for women. Soccer is a big three sport for women (basketball, soccer, volleyball IMO) and that changes a lot of things.

If mens soccer wasn’t fighting Title IX and had the money backing of basketball or even baseball, we would be competitive.

As it is, we have a lot of catching up to do.

hook’em

Did anyone else think that the US PK kickers were just a little too easy to read…? Also, no second-guessing, but I hope Solo’s minor injury didn’t contribute to the close-but-not-quite PK defending.

Males worldwide grow up playing soccer and precious little else. Females do not. We are thus at a serious disadvantage in the former case, but not in the latter.

“Did anyone else think that the US PK kickers were just a little too easy to read…?”

Everyone has a favorite spot or a tendency on their PKs and we tipped our hand against Brazil. Japan scouted it and reacted appropriately. See Shannon Boxx’s attempt. The goalie went hard right because that is where Boxx went against Brazil. You can switch it up and go to your 2nd favorite spot but you are immediately weaker for having to go against your natural preference.

The game had no business going into PKs anyways. The big failure occurred before then. Should have been 3 or 4-0 at the end of the first 90 minutes.

It should have been 1-0 40 seconds in. Wambach was wide open in front of the net and we inexplicably tried to keep scoring from a 15 degree angle along the touchline with some Maicon style magic.

Rachel Buehler flat out cost us the championship. She cleared the ball right in front of her own goal - something you learn not to do at, say, around the age of 4-5 - on the first goal. She was beaten to the spot by Sawa on Japan’s late equalizer. She simply had no place on this team and is a girl version of Greg Davis. A two-ton albatross around our necks from day one of this tournament.

No speed, no talent, no anticipation, unsure of what to do with the ball, and wouldn’t make my club team.

Sundhages Sacred Cow:

buehler
la peilbet
boxx
lloyd

we have no one to blame but ourselves. The game should have been put away in the first 35. We pounded the Japanese and had nothing to show for it. Appreciate very gutsy play from Japan but we should have taken care of business.

Now for the bigger question: How can we get Alex Morgan on tv? Does the Longhorn Network need an analyst for men’s and women’s soccer?

Agree with others we could have put the game away in the first thirtyish mins.

Pks are always such an unsatisfying/flawed method of determining a winner b/c it removes the team aspect from the contest. It’s like the NBA having teams shoot free throws after the first overtime.
With apologies to yogi, pks are 100% all mental - even more than free-throws. It doesn’t matter if the kicker points to the corner of the goal al a babe Ruth. If the keeper starts near the middle of the net they cannot stop a well struck ball to the corner. I saw very poorly struck balls on most of our attempts.

Japan handled the pressure better - hats off to them.

Japan handled the pressure better - hats off to them.

Ms. Morgan definitely has some tv potential after she hangs up the cleats.

bigdukesix:

It’s all English jingo (jingoistic) jargon that comes from their claim to have invented the sport. The English annoy the shit out of me because they’ve been a second-rate, blowhard soccer power for some time now but insist on acting like they’re the final word in soccer.

If Foudy had any sense at all, she would definitely say speed instead of pace, nerves or nervous instead of nervy, etc. I agree, she sounds silly trying to copy the brits.

The EPL is a fun and entertaining league to watch. But that’s because all of the talent is imported. The English national team was dogshit in South Africa. A better line to borrow from the English is Johnny Rotten’s famous quip…England’s duhreaammmmming!