2015 Women's World Cup

Well, it was a pity that the draw of the World Cup was so imbalanced that practically the best teams (bar Japan) were on one side of the draw. I'd say we'll meet again next year in Brazil

US deserve to go through regardless of refereeing mistakes but...jeez those were bad.

Why don't men get to do any of the games in the world cup? I don't mind women doing the games, but to be completely honest, the refereeing in every game just isn't at the level it needs to be at. This is something that I've noticed over the last two women's world cups, and 2012 olympics.

Well, did you see the refereeing done by men in World Cup, Champions League, Leagues etc? That wasn't much better either. For some reason refereeing in general looks worse and worse nowadays. We really need video proof etc as the game got faster and the refs can't really keep up.

Annike Krahn in the interview: "Yeah, the penaltiy decision was a referee mistake, but that doesn't matter - I fouled her and shouldn't have done that."

Couple of interesting twitter responses to the game (all meant in good humor, of course):

Ken Jennings ‏@KenJennings 20m
Hope Japan beats England. I like our odds when the U.S. beats Germany and then moves on to Japan.

Laura Glass @LGBCGolf19
Did you just say Sasic missed it or sausage biscuit? #FWWC2015 #USAGER @ussoccer @ussoccer_wnt @JulieFoudy @AlexiLalas

Well, perhaps not ALL meant entirely in good humor:

Landon Donovan Verified account
‏@landondonovan

Love the enthusiasm and veteran presence of @AbbyWambach despite not playing much.  That kind of leadership is priceless during a WC

RedOranje wrote:Couple of interesting twitter responses to the game (all meant in good humor, of course):

Ken Jennings ‏@KenJennings 20m
Hope Japan beats England. I like our odds when the U.S. beats Germany and then moves on to Japan.

Laura Glass @LGBCGolf19
Did you just say Sasic missed it or sausage biscuit? #FWWC2015 #USAGER @ussoccer @ussoccer_wnt @JulieFoudy @AlexiLalas

Well, perhaps not ALL meant entirely in good humor:

Landon Donovan Verified account
‏@landondonovan

Love the enthusiasm and veteran presence of @AbbyWambach despite not playing much.  That kind of leadership is priceless during a WC

Donovan's a prick

English journalist just called Carli Lloyd "the Steven Gerrard of world women's football at the moment." I still don't understand why people feel the need to compare players, female or male, to others in describing them; why not just let Carli be Carli?

Didn't watch the game, but I did listen to it.

This US team is literally proving that old adage is right on the money.

"Defense wins championships".

It wasn't quite catenaccio, but that was the type of defending a Serie A fan like myself could certainly appreciate from the sounds of it. Germany just didn't have an answer for how to unlock us, but if there's any team in this tournament that probably does, it's Japan. I want them in the final.

We have a score to settle.

Wow USA absolutely dominated Ze Germans.

Dominated them...but had to win with a PK from outside of the box and a missed PK from the Germans.

So O'Hara's goal at the end doesn't count then?

It was scored from the run of play, after all.

England Women: Bardsley, Bronze, Houghton, Bassett, Rafferty, J Scott, Williams, Chapman, Moore, Taylor, Duggan

Japanese Sans and Chans: Kaihori, Iwashimizu, Kumagai, Sameshima, Sakaguchi, Miyama, Kawasumi, Ohno, Utsugi, Ogimi, Ariyoshi.

We'll see some splendid bus parking.

No regrets tonight.

Positive start tbh

McLewis wrote:So O'Hara's goal at the end doesn't count then?

It was scored from the run of play, after all.

Shhh. And certainly don't mention Morgan's chances (her misses somehow being incomparable to Germany's) or the fact that Germany had only a single (or no, depending on which site you read) shot(s) on target all match.

England going very direct up to Taylor. Defending well at the moment but not committing many in attack. I'm worried Taylor is going to become very isolated soon enough.

Decent start though.

Attack isn't quite clicking. More to do with mentality since everything is being rushed whenever the ball goes up.

Bardsley...

Duggan is quite insistent on shooting from far

Gary Lineker ‏@GaryLineker 14m
Artificial pitches have improved over the years but they still don't replicate a good grass surface. Slows the game down.

Most of the complaints about the artificial pitches (that don't reference the ridiculous injury threat and heat) center around the ball bouncing higher and moving FASTER on artificial turf, not slower...

Our plan is pretty clear. Get it up to the forwards and hope they do something amazing, or score from a set-piece. Basically been our way the whole tournament.

I think we're just shading things so far, but a few times we've looked a bit narrow down our right. Good thing Japan haven't used that switch very often.

What a fantastic cross that was to Duggan.

She tried to Zidane it first time

Control it first ffs. She had time as well

Penalty to Japan. Right on the edge of the box again.

Penalty Japan. Silly from Rafferty.

Kinda want Japan to miss, or else they'll simply play keep-ball for the rest of the match.

What a stupid challenge. Wow