2011 Women's World Cup

[Acey]

Yeah that's the worst handball I've ever seen at a sanctioned football event. But not only that, she missed some horrible fouls that should have been yellow cards. Horrific refereeing.

[Locke]

I love how it took a couple of days for that to generate some outrage.

Oooohh.....even refereeing at the WWC is of low, almost CONCACAF quality.

I've had that happen to me while coaching minor soccer, the usual response is: 'There was no handball, no mistake was made, if you continue to believe that a mistake was made we'll card the coach.'

[ricoFlame]

What a terribly disappointing tourney for the Canadian Gals.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by ricoFlame

What a terribly disappointing tourney for the Canadian Gals.

They scored a goal. Its coming along.

[TheSchnitzel]

Were at the game yesterday, my girlfriend sporting a Canada bandana and myself in my Canada cycling jersey. Were probably the only Germans singing along to your national anthem Quite a few other Canadian flags and supporters in the stadium though - some real Canadians and a lot of Germans. They really like you guys over here.

Unfortunately the match was a mess and finally proofed to my girlfriend that womens soccer still is very different from the real thing. Girls were all slow in reaction and speed, afraid of the ball and opponents and most opportunities were more coincidence than well played.
Most exiting thing was the power outage.

In the end Canada lost despite the support of main crowd and deserved it. I'm at least proud that I can now say that we guys are better at hockey than you guys are at soccer
(Though there is no such thing as womens hockey here so the comparison lacks a bit...)

[GirlySports]

Lots of analysis now.

Stephen Brunt video

Jason DeVos Blog

Make no bones about it; in terms of player development, we are so far behind most countries that we can't even see them from where we are. Unless we make massive changes to the structure of youth soccer across our country, we will continue to fall even further behind.

[Addick]

de Vos is spot on. This blog entry shows why he's miles ahead of Forrest.

[olygoalie]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

Lots of analysis now.

Stephen Brunt video

Jason DeVos Blog

It is sad that Canada is so far behind. A work in progress!

[Flamenspiel]

Excellent article by DeVos. As I watched the other teams, it seemed as if we only had one Sinclair and they had many.

Earlier in the spring as i drove by the field with my 5 year old i noticed coaches yelling and 5 year olds playing an end to end game with nets and I thought, na, there must be another way.

[Acey]

What a pair of matches today, watched them both in their entirety. This World Cup is completely up for grabs now, I figured Germany to be a lock coming into today. France can do some serious damage if they can get Thiney and Necib going, they are both very skilled.

I find myself far more engaged in this World Cup than I was last year. Must have been those damn vuvuzelas.

[GirlySports]

Cause there's no Spain in this World Cup passing the ball 100 times

[d_phaneuf]

wow

[Acey]

What a game.

Pretty awesome that we get this tournament in 4 years.

[GirlySports]

That was a crazy game! Fitting the US heart won it in the end. The Brazillian playacting and complaining was ridiculous.

[Mango]

I'm shocked at the way the Brazilians acted. Maybe shocked isn't the right word....but it was darn right pathetic and embarrassing. I'm glad the US won.

[VANFLAMESFAN]

Heard about the game, so I decided to watch the second half and Extra time. That was something special. The Wombach equalizer and subsequent celebration is what i love about this game, what I love about sports. Just the emotion, it cant be duplicated in any other way. The look on Solo's face and her jumping around hysterically was a great moment as well. Pretty impressive stuff in Germany.

I'm keeping this game on my pvr for awhile.

[Montana Moe]

I have soccer on TV pretty often (EPL/MLS, etc.), the kids will watch occasionally, but never show a ton of interest. Today, they intently watched the extra time/PK's, and immediately wanted to go outside and play soccer.

I thought that was a testament to the emotion and guts displayed in that match. Two kids under 6 were inspired by it, that's exactly what the U.S. Soccer (and hockey) program needs to happen.

[moon]

Not that it will likely matter since it is so late but it appears that the reffing in this tournament is as bad as the play.

Should be an exciting finish though. Shocking to see the Japanese get this far and now with a chance to win the whole thing.

[PIMking]

What a game!!

That Japanese player did one of the smartest things she could ever do. Take the card instead a one on one with your goalie.

[troutman]

Soccer is the cruelest game. Japan was dominated by the US. Scoring chances were about 12 - 3.