Quote:
Originally Posted by GirlySports
Canada should be very proud. That's 2 successful tournaments in Canada now (Women's Under 19 and now this). I hope the Women's World Cup omes to Canada in the future. Any major tournament in North America will be a success and break records because we are so multicultural and rich. Attendance-wise, the Asian Cup for example is a disaster because nobody can afford to go to any games and there is no interest in games that don't involve the hosts.
It's not just the major incidents that I remember, all the matches had no flow to them. It's like hockey games having 20-30 power plays. Too much diving and way too many fouls. They say in the best games, you dont remember the ref. In this tournament, the ref had way too much tv time.
How many times did you hear Craig Forrest say, "Come on, that's not a foul! A perfect tackle, let them play ref!"
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One of the reasons this tournament was such a success was the ticket prices. I could not believe how affordable the tickets were. Cheap tickets were around $10, and when we went to the Q-Finals, sweet lower bowl tickets were $29 including all the charges. Who couldn't afford to go? Even with the commute from Calgary, it was well within what one would be willing to pay... especially considering that the junior Summit Series in Red Deer has tickets in the $70 range.
One big problem with this tournament is that these players are a little too young, and with that, have some issues with flow and poise that needs time and experience to develop. Even just upping it to U-21 (like UEFA does) would push out some 16-17 year olds and replace them with much more improved and professional 20 year olds. This would also mean the big teams of Europe would be more likely to attend with their best. Having a U20 and a U21 tournament means making some tough decisions, and essentially, splitting your talent into two teams (which is what the big teams did, and why they didn't qualify). Having the ability to watch the youth of Italy, England, France, Germany and the Netherlands would have completely obliterated the attendance record that was set. Like I said before... too much filler from the weaker confederations, not enough Europe. In the end, it was down to the usual suspects anyway... top European teams and top South American teams.
I think we can all do what Blatter suggested and forget that controversial little Police/Chilean team melee happened.
The other real big problem was the reffing. Unbelievably bad... you'd think they were in their teens too... falling for everything, and when they weren't encouraging players to dive by being so gullible (The biggest encouraging factor to diving is getting away with it, toss some yellow cards for diving around, and let the boys play more and it won't happen nearly as much)... they were calling the most assinine things and ruining what precious little flow there was.
With that, I enjoyed all 3 games I saw live (New Zealand-Mexico, Canada-Congo, Spain - Czech Republic) and it was probably the highest quality soccer tournament we'll see in Canada for a very long time.