This is in reference to the Women's World Cup that is going on right now. Things are heating up and I was wrong about two of my picks in the quarterfinals. Although I wanted it to happen I really didn't think that Australia could beat France. I was really impressed with how well Australia played and felt as though they controlled the pace of the game for most of it.
The penalty shootout that happened at the end of that match set the record as the longest of any penalty shootout to ever happen in the World Cup for men AND women. That kept us on edge that were watching it and it was truly exciting. On two separate instances it appeared as though Australia had it locked in only to have them miss the penalty or have it saved on the next attempt. Most of the time penalties go in, so this was very rare to have so many of them saved or missed.
The big news of the night was the England vs. Colombia game though and not because the result wasn't expected, by all accounts England really should have won a lot more convincingly than they did.
Colombia actually scored first and had us all wondering if we were going to see our 2nd huge upset of the World Cup. There have been few surprises but the early elimination of USA was something no one saw coming and Japan losing to Sweden was unexpected as well.
No one was really surprised that England won this match, but a lot of people were very impressed with how Colombia made a game of it.
Before the game began I found a website where you could pick a winner by the spread and this particular website instead of having +/- on the odds for betting had straight bets based on goal difference. The one I found, just like all of the other websites had England favored to win but this particular one had them favored by 1.5 goals... Obviously no one is capable of scoring a half of a goal that is just their way of saying that if you bet on England, in order for your bet to pay out they need to win by 2 goals or more.
I didn't think that England was capable of this or even if they were, that they would not play to achieve that end. I figured that if they got up by one goal that they would switch to a defensive style of play and hold off the Colombians for the win.
My suspicions were confirmed quite early on in the game because even though England dominated possession, they failed to really do anything noteworthy with that possession other than tool around in the midfield until possession was lost. Colombia on the other hand had a fast counter-attack strategy (or so it appeared) and had significantly more shots on goal than England attempted.
Colombia looked like they might shock the world when they scored first in the 44th minute and the crowd was just starting to get really loud in what appeared to be a crazy upset only to have England score as well a mere 1 minute later.
Football is strange like that you know? Basically nothing happens for more than 40 minutes and then 2 goals happen in 2 minutes. I feel bad for anyone that decided to go to the bathroom since "the first half was basically over" or so it appeared.
Things stagnated for a while but then England scored again in minute 63.
At this point I was still feeling very confident about my bet because I didn't expect England to score any more in the game and while there were some chances, they did at least seem to be playing quite defensively in the 2nd half after going ahead by one goal. This is not a dirty tactic, that is just how the game is played. Of course Colombia scrambled frantically to get an equalizer but after 93 minutes or so and the final whistle was blown, England won by one goal and my bet paid out.
I like betting on spreads more than straight victories and it just kind of depends on whatever betting site you are using which they are going to offer, most offer the option of doing either but some do not. Either way I was happy that the game played out like it did because I have been wrong on 50% of my predictions for the quarterfinals. I don't even know what to think about the upcoming matches but I'm gonna make a call now and say that I believe the final will see England against Sweden.
What do you think?