So the bracket stages or "round of 16" has started in the Women's Word Cup and since I am the only person that is actually watching this I feel compelled to let people know what is going on.
The difficulty I experienced in simply finding the above bracket to post is a good sign about how little the world actually cares about the fact that the Women's World Cup is even happening right now. Why not just put the names on there as well? The ones I could find that had the names were a mess containing entirely to much information and it was just stupid. So if you don't know all the flags that is fine.
Thus far only 2 of the games have happened and it was Switzerland vs. Spain (top left) and Japan vs. Norway (2nd from the bottom left.) There are two more games today or tonight depending on where you live in the world and They are Netherlands vs South Africa and the much anticipated Sweden vs. USA. I'll get to how I feel, as an American, about the latter game in a minute.
I didn't watch the Swiss / Spain game but it was a one-sided affair with Spain demolishing Switzerland 5-1. The funny thing about that game was that the goal that the Swiss scored was actually and "own goal" or OG as it is showed in the statistics and while I did not watch the replay that simply means that Spain scored all the goals in the game including one on themselves.
There was tons of celebrating on the part of Spain as they basically controlled every aspect of the game and Switzerland didn't look like they belonged in the bracket stages. Given the teams that remain, I suspect this wont be the last time we see a butt whoopin' of this magnitude. The own goal was very unusual and I'd love to show a clip of it but they must copystrike and protect the hell out of that because I can't find it anywhere. It was made from nearly half-field and was a truly big mistake.
The real game of the day in my mind was watching Japan almost completely control Norway as they cruised to what appeared to be a relatively easy win 3-1. It was when Japan took out two of their best players at around 70 minutes that I realized that Japan knew they had it in the bag and was no longer trying to score any more goals.
Japan is my favorite team in the WC because they are defying the odds since they are an average of 6cm shorter than the other teams they play. They cannot rely on headers for shots on goal since the people defending against them are normally much larger. They also don't play dirty, they NEVER fake fouls for field positioning, and the players and the fans reactions to scoring a goal is, for lack of a better word, simply cute.
Japan held possession for most of the game but it wasn't just the near 20% advantage of time having possession it was what Japan did with that possession that was most impressive. They just seemed to be in complete control every time they took possession outside of a period of about 10 minutes towards the end of the game when Norway started to get a bit frantic about their impending elimination. When Japan had the ball, they tended to keep it and be patient, often playing the ball back rather than take a risky move forward. Norway on the other hand, seemed to make a lot of bad passes that were intercepted or challenged by Japan's defense that resulted in losing possession. Japan rarely made this mistake and mostly when they lost possession it was because an out of bounds situation.
Japan looks like the team to beat in the entire tournament thus far because they trounced Spain and it was Spain that trounced Switzerland yesterday. I would be willing to bet that Spain is hoping they do not have to play Japan again.
The main part of the bracket that most people are interested in, and what could end up being the most watched game of the entire tournament other than the final is potentially going to happen in a few days. Sweden is playing against USA around 6 hours from now, and the winner of that game will face Japan in the quarterfinals. USA has been playing very sub-par and if they haven't managed to reel that in they could face being sent home by Sweden. No matter who wins that game though, they have the misfortune of playing against a very strong Japan, and even if it is my own country's team that makes it through to the next round, I will be cheering for Japan.
I can't say what the problem is with USA but I was having a discussion with a friend the other day and it might boil down to attitude and arrogance. My friend made the comparison to the USA men's basketball team losing in the Olympics I think it was against Greece and how on paper, the USA team should have absolutely destroyed everyone they were against. However, the arrogance of the USA side resulted in them not actually practicing as a team and not being capable of playing as a team. The United States women have won the world cup 3 times (there have only been 8 women's World Cups) and they have won the past 2 back-to-back. They may have entered this tournament with a sense of entitlement and maybe didn't take it seriously. They haven't performed well up to this point and I wonder if that can actually change.
I'm rooting for Japan either way.