2015 Women's World Cup

SoxFanInCali

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California. Duh.
I hope 25 people show up and it's completely silent.
 
Because that's what you get for putting the semifinals of the World Cup in Edmonton.
 

URI

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I'm kinda hoping England win it all.
 
Because the reaction in England would be really something to behold.
 

Royal Reader

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"Since they expected Canada to be in the semis, the game starts at 5pm local time, or midnight in London and 8am in Tokyo. So GJGE on screwing the countries involved from being able to watch."


 
Eh?  Any other time screws one or other worse than that, pushing the game into the small hours of the morning.  IDK, maybe 11pm/7am gives you a slightly greater total audience, but there's no combination of venue and kickoff time that suits everyone when you're playing Japan-England in Canada.  I mean, noon in London and 8pm Tokyo probably works best in terms of TV, but then you're playing the game sometime between 4am-7am depending on venue which is an obvious non-starter.  6.6 million Britons watched Steve Redgrave and Matt Pinsent in the 2000 Olympics with a 00:40 start time.  Now admittedly that was a race that takes a couple of minutes and it was on a Friday night.  On the other hand, football.  This is a BFD in terms of the UK media.  It's not going to be like the 2002 World Cup when Argentina played at 4am their time or something.
 

soxfan121

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URI said:
I'm kinda hoping England win it all.
 
Because the reaction in England would be really something to behold.
 
English Leo Carillo is literally drooling in anticipation.
 

Mighty Joe Young

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Spacemans Bong said:
Since they expected Canada to be in the semis, the game starts at 5pm local time, or midnight in London and 8am in Tokyo. So GJGE on screwing the countries involved from being able to watch.
So you are criticizing the organizers for setting a start time that maximizes viewership in Canada when there was a pretty good chance Canada would be involved in the game?

"Gee .. Even though Cinderella story Canada is in the semi finals of the freaking World Cup let's set the start time to something where nobody in North America will watch it on the offhand chance they don't make it."

I know .. "Cinderella Story" only because of the draw. I don't think Canada was one of the four best teams. But the same can be said for England.
 

Mighty Joe Young

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shawnrbu said:
What kind of atmosphere is Japan vs. England in Edmonton going to have in the semifinals?  What will attendance be like?
Well, Montreal gets one semi final so, considering the alternatives were Winnipeg, Ottawa and Moncton, Edmonton seems to make sense. One could make an argument for Ottawa I suppose.

The real problem .. And it's not really a problem given attendance so far .. was Toronto not being part of it. A semi final at Skydome or BMO Field (where Toronto FC plays) would have guaranteed a full house.

I think the crowd at Edmonton will be fine. Most of, if not all the tickets would have been sold long ago.
 

Mighty Joe Young

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SoxFanInCali said:
I've got to admit, after all of the talk in the aftermath of the London Olympics, I'm good with Canada going out.
Considering "all the talk" mostly involved what a complete asshole Abby Wambauch is - and the most outrageous referee decision in international soccer history .. I fail to see how that makes Canada an unsympathetic team.
 

URI

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BCsMightyJoeYoung said:
most outrageous referee decision in international soccer history
 
 
It's awesome that you only follow women's soccer.
 

SoxFanInCali

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BCsMightyJoeYoung said:
Considering "all the talk" mostly involved what a complete asshole Abby Wambauch is - and the most outrageous referee decision in international soccer history .. I fail to see how that makes Canada an unsympathetic team.
 
Maybe someone should have purposely broken her ankle. That seems to be the best way for Canada to have their greatest sports moments.
 

Mighty Joe Young

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URI said:
It's awesome that you only follow women's soccer.
Are you really trying to suggest that that call was nothing out of the ordinary? Or that it was merely controversial? On first blush it seemed nothing short of a ref being bought off. Sober second thought reduced it to one of, if not the stupidest calls ever witnessed. At least on a comparable stage.

To refresh ..
Wambauch spent most of the game screaming at the referee to penalize the Canadian keeper for time wasting. In any non-biased world this should have resulted in Wambauch getting a yellow card for referee badgering. But no .. Instead the ref gives a spot kick foul just outside of the Canadian area for said time wasting. Has the ref ever heard of simply giving a yellow card to warn the keeper? Noooo .. Straight to a foul. Virtually unprecedented. And then the ref tops that off with an idiotic hand ball call on the subsequent play resulting in an American penalty being awarded.

So .. At best the Ref was merely an incredibly incompetent boob .. Otherwise one can only assume the fix was in.
 

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BCsMightyJoeYoung said:
Are you really trying to suggest that that call was nothing out of the ordinary? Or that it was merely controversial? On first blush it seemed nothing short of a ref being bought off. Sober second thought reduced it to one of, if not the stupidest calls ever witnessed. At least on a comparable stage.

To refresh ..
Wambauch spent most of the game screaming at the referee to penalize the Canadian keeper for time wasting. In any non-biased world this should have resulted in Wambauch getting a yellow card for referee badgering. But no .. Instead the ref gives a spot kick foul just outside of the Canadian area for said time wasting. Has the ref ever heard of simply giving a yellow card to warn the keeper? Noooo .. Straight to a foul. Virtually unprecedented. And then the ref tops that off with an idiotic hand ball call on the subsequent play resulting in an American penalty being awarded.

So .. At best the Ref was merely an incredibly incompetent boob .. Otherwise one can only assume the fix was in.
 
What game are you talking about?
 

speedracer

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BCsMightyJoeYoung said:
Are you really trying to suggest that that call was nothing out of the ordinary? Or that it was merely controversial? On first blush it seemed nothing short of a ref being bought off. Sober second thought reduced it to one of, if not the stupidest calls ever witnessed. At least on a comparable stage.

To refresh ..
Wambauch spent most of the game screaming at the referee to penalize the Canadian keeper for time wasting. In any non-biased world this should have resulted in Wambauch getting a yellow card for referee badgering. But no .. Instead the ref gives a spot kick foul just outside of the Canadian area for said time wasting. Has the ref ever heard of simply giving a yellow card to warn the keeper? Noooo .. Straight to a foul. Virtually unprecedented. And then the ref tops that off with an idiotic hand ball call on the subsequent play resulting in an American penalty being awarded.

So .. At best the Ref was merely an incredibly incompetent boob .. Otherwise one can only assume the fix was in.
 
Pretty sure there's no provision for the referee to give a yellow card warning and give a goal kick when the keeper holds the ball too long.  At some point it has to be a violation, for which the prescribed penalty is an indirect free kick.
 

lars10

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SoxFanInCali said:
 
Maybe someone should have purposely broken her ankle. That seems to be the best way for Canada to have their greatest sports moments.
My takeaway from yesterday was that both teams seemed pretty chippy. Tancredi especially seemed like she was ready to go.. But both teams seemed like they got into it after the play a bit.

My memory of the time wasting by the Canadian keeper was that she should have got a card a few times..she was warned a couple times to speed up though...and she never sped up.

Soccer needs to have a running clock that stops and is visible to everyone... Would get rid of a lot of problems with potential ref corruption/speculation... Plus sometimes you'd get stoppage time above 5 minutes..maybe even 10-15. Would also be a great way to get rid of the faux injuries.
 

SoxFanInCali

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If I was a Canada fan, yeah, it have been upset at the way that game was refereed, but what I was commenting on was the ridiculous overreaction and conspiracy theories that poor, poor Canada was being picked on in the aftermatch.
 
BCMJY made my point for me.
 
"the most outrageous referee decision in international soccer history"
"stupidest calls ever witnessed"
"nothing short of a ref being bought off"
"one can only assume the fix was in"
 
The US beat Brazil in 2011 despite having about 4 ridiculous decisions go against them that directly led to both Brazil goals.  I can name about 15 games off the top of my head that had more controversial decisions in them.  I was also getting sick of listening to the Canadian crowd whining about every foul called against Canada the entire tournament, no matter how blatant the foul was.  So yes, I'm glad they are out.
 

Royal Reader

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SoxFanInCali said:
 
If I was a Canada fan, yeah, it have been upset at the way that game was refereed, but what I was commenting on was the ridiculous overreaction and conspiracy theories that poor, poor Canada was being picked on in the aftermatch.
 
BCMJY made my point for me.
 
"the most outrageous referee decision in international soccer history"
"stupidest calls ever witnessed"
"nothing short of a ref being bought off"
"one can only assume the fix was in"
 
The US beat Brazil in 2011 despite having about 4 ridiculous decisions go against them that directly led to both Brazil goals.  I can name about 15 games off the top of my head that had more controversial decisions in them.  I was also getting sick of listening to the Canadian crowd whining about every foul called against Canada the entire tournament, no matter how blatant the foul was.  So yes, I'm glad they are out.
 
Hand of God
Harald Schumacher
Belgium/Soviets 1986 (Fuck the Soviets, but still)
Rudi Voller in the 1990 final
Korea against Italy and Spain in '02
The three yellow card game
Mexico-El Salvador in '70
Henry against Ireland
The Rivaldo "OMG My Face" moment
The Clive Thomas game

Just in the (Men's)World Cup. 

Joe's "Most outrageous refereeing decision ever" is A FUCKING INDIRECT FREE KICK FOR TIMEWASTING?  Wouldn't even make the top hundred.
 

Mighty Joe Young

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SoxFanInCali said:
Oh, and it's Wambach, not Wambauch.
Hey .. It's not my fault if she can't spell her own name ..

My -admittedly over the top- comments were mostly a result of the bizarro land nature of the call.. Of course there's been a gazillion horrible decisions over the years but I can't recall anything of that sort in such a high profile game. Can anyone remember a similar call -that is an indirect free kick - for time wasting? In a World Cup or Olympic match? I've been watching soccer pretty extensively for about fifteen or twenty years now and nothing comes to mind.

And it was probably a perfect storm of events that causes so much vitriol from Canadian fans .. The completely over the top referee baiting from Wambach - the bizarro land call - and another really bad decision on the hand ball which seemed to rob the Canadian team of an incredible upset victory. (At least that's the narrative).

None of which mattered at all for this World Cup .. The Canadian team did not play well (ironically they played their best in their only loss) and only got as far as they did due to the favourable draw. Go England!

That being said the country seems to have done an excellent job hosting an event nobody wanted. Attendance has been fantastic.
 

swiftaw

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speedracer said:
 
Pretty sure there's no provision for the referee to give a yellow card warning and give a goal kick when the keeper holds the ball too long.  At some point it has to be a violation, for which the prescribed penalty is an indirect free kick.
Actually, I'd argue that the reverse is true. The rules of the game specifically say that time wasting is a yellow card offense but nowhere I could find does it say that it is an offense that results in a free kick.

Goalkeepers are yellow carded for taking goal kicks too slowly on a regular basis, and then the game restarts with said goal kick.
 

DJnVa

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swiftaw said:
Actually, I'd argue that the reverse is true. The rules of the game specifically say that time wasting is a yellow card offense but nowhere I could find does it say that it is an offense that results in a free kick.

Goalkeepers are yellow carded for taking goal kicks too slowly on a regular basis, and then the game restarts with said goal kick.
 
 
Nowhere could you find where that results in a free kick? Maybe because you are considering it a time wasting foul, and it's not. It's covered by the same set of rules that doesn't allow a keeper to pick up a ball played back by a teammate with their feet.
 
 
An indirect free kick is awarded to the opposing team if a goalkeeper, inside his own penalty area, commits any of the following four offences:
controls the ball with his hands for more than six seconds before releasing it from his possession
• touches the ball again with his hands after he has released it from his possession and before it has touched another player
• touches the ball with his hands after it has been deliberately kicked to him by a team-mate
• touches the ball with his hands after he has received it directly from a throw-in taken by a team-mate
 
 

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SoxFanInCali said:
I always loved the story about Schumacher being voted the most hated person in France.  Second place?  Hitler.
Kind of like the 3. Stalin 2. Hitler 1. Walter O'Malley story.
 

SoxFanInCali

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I didn't want to make it all about the US, but...yeah.
 
That call was mild compared to the Korea games that tourney, though.
 

Spacemans Bong

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"Since they expected Canada to be in the semis, the game starts at 5pm local time, or midnight in London and 8am in Tokyo. So GJGE on screwing the countries involved from being able to watch."


 
Eh?  Any other time screws one or other worse than that, pushing the game into the small hours of the morning.  IDK, maybe 11pm/7am gives you a slightly greater total audience, but there's no combination of venue and kickoff time that suits everyone when you're playing Japan-England in Canada.  I mean, noon in London and 8pm Tokyo probably works best in terms of TV, but then you're playing the game sometime between 4am-7am depending on venue which is an obvious non-starter.  6.6 million Britons watched Steve Redgrave and Matt Pinsent in the 2000 Olympics with a 00:40 start time.  Now admittedly that was a race that takes a couple of minutes and it was on a Friday night.  On the other hand, football.  This is a BFD in terms of the UK media.  It's not going to be like the 2002 World Cup when Argentina played at 4am their time or something.
 
 
It's not that BFD. The start time is definitely affecting the number of people giving a crap, this would have been much bigger were the tournament in Europe (not suggesting tourney should always be in Europe here). I can think of at least a half-dozen friends who would have watched had Saturday's game kicked off at 9pm London time rather than 12.30am London time. 
 
If they started the game at 1pm Edmonton time, that's 8pm London time. If they started at 7pm Edmonton time, that's 10am Tokyo time. Both are preferable as the current start time is basically purpose designed to be as bad as possible for both sides. One country won't stay up that late on a weekday, one country is going to work at that time. 
 
FIFA's definitely organized this tournament around the desire to maximize viewing audiences in North America and that's cool, but there should be some flexibility when one (or both, since I suspect Germany will knock out the US) crashes out of the tournament. 
 
BCsMightyJoeYoung said:
So you are criticizing the organizers for setting a start time that maximizes viewership in Canada when there was a pretty good chance Canada would be involved in the game?

"Gee .. Even though Cinderella story Canada is in the semi finals of the freaking World Cup let's set the start time to something where nobody in North America will watch it on the offhand chance they don't make it."

I know .. "Cinderella Story" only because of the draw. I don't think Canada was one of the four best teams. But the same can be said for England.
 
Cinderella story? You got a cupcake run to the quarters. 
 

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Spacemans Bong said:
 
 
It's not that BFD. The start time is definitely affecting the number of people giving a crap, this would have been much bigger were the tournament in Europe (not suggesting tourney should always be in Europe here). I can think of at least a half-dozen friends who would have watched had Saturday's game kicked off at 9pm London time rather than 12.30am London time. 
 
If they started the game at 1pm Edmonton time, that's 8pm London time. If they started at 7pm Edmonton time, that's 10am Tokyo time. Both are preferable as the current start time is basically purpose designed to be as bad as possible for both sides. One country won't stay up that late on a weekday, one country is going to work at that time. 
 
FIFA's definitely organized this tournament around the desire to maximize viewing audiences in North America and that's cool, but there should be some flexibility when one (or both, since I suspect Germany will knock out the US) crashes out of the tournament. 

 
 
 
 
But 1pm Edmonton time is 4am in Tokyo.  8PM Edmonton time is three AM BST.  So instead of it being moderately inconvenient for both, it becomes basically unwatchable for one or other.  Neither country is going to be willing to accept moving the kickoff in a way that makes it harder for their fans to watch.
 

SoxFanInCali

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I'll admit, I had the video of that goal cued up to post right after the South Park "Fuck Canada" one, but decided that was overkill, especially since Germany may stomp us in the next game.
 

Mighty Joe Young

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Spacemans Bong said:
 
 
It's not that BFD. The start time is definitely affecting the number of people giving a crap, this would have been much bigger were the tournament in Europe (not suggesting tourney should always be in Europe here). I can think of at least a half-dozen friends who would have watched had Saturday's game kicked off at 9pm London time rather than 12.30am London time. 
 
If they started the game at 1pm Edmonton time, that's 8pm London time. If they started at 7pm Edmonton time, that's 10am Tokyo time. Both are preferable as the current start time is basically purpose designed to be as bad as possible for both sides. One country won't stay up that late on a weekday, one country is going to work at that time. 
 
FIFA's definitely organized this tournament around the desire to maximize viewing audiences in North America and that's cool, but there should be some flexibility when one (or both, since I suspect Germany will knock out the US) crashes out of the tournament. 
 
 
Cinderella story? You got a cupcake run to the quarters. 
 
 
Is that not what I said? I agree .. they had an incredibly favourable draw. I was trying to point out the Marketeers viewpoint.
 

DJnVa

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BCsMightyJoeYoung said:
 
Is that not what I said? I agree .. they had an incredibly favourable draw. I was trying to point out the Marketeers viewpoint.
 
It's not just a "favorable draw". It's engineered.
 
http://screamer.deadspin.com/fifa-screwed-france-out-of-the-tournament-and-its-bull-1714679305
 
 
 
There was no draw for seeded teams at the Women’s World Cup. Instead, FIFA selected which of them would be in which groups. This meant that when making the knockout rounds bracket, they already had a good idea of which teams would win their groups, and thus when and where they would meet. Their reasoning for doing so was to put certain teams in certain locations with an eye towards stadium attendance and bigger TV audiences for the teams’ home nations. What this resulted in was one side of the bracket (the one with Germany, France, and the U.S.) being way more stacked than the other.
 
 
 
Look at it from Germany’s perspective. If they win the whole thing, they will have beaten the 5th ranked team in the Round of 16, the 3rd ranked one in the next round, the 2nd ranked team in the semifinal, and most likely 4th ranked Japan in the final. That’s basically every single team that had a cognizable chance at winning the World Cup, and Germany will have to beat all of them. Meanwhile, Japan won’t play a single team that could even give them a game in the knockout rounds until the final. And again, this is how FIFA wanted it.
 
Left unsaid, is that Japan is on the side of the bracket with Canada, which mean the home country was given a relatively favorable road.
 
There's more at the link, including the financial repercussions involved. FIFA pays federations depending based on how far they advance.
 

dirtynine

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Bringing my daughter to City Hall Plaza tonight for her first real "soccer in a crowd" experience. I don't know what jersey the US is wearing tonight, but she's gotten used to rooting for "the white shirts" so things could get confusing for her. 
 

Cellar-Door

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Ellis changing it up. Going to a 4-2-3-1 which Morgan Brian admits they haven't really worked in very much.
 

DJnVa

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Jesus, Lalas is insufferable.
 
It's not that he's picking Germany, it's how he does it. We get it dude, you're a rebel.
 

Cellar-Door

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Oh God, I can only find the Fox stream.
Now I have to listen to them talk about professional athletes like a U-13 travel team.
 

Sportsbstn

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DrewDawg said:
Jesus, Lalas is insufferable.
 
It's not that he's picking Germany, it's how he does it. We get it dude, you're a rebel.
 
Well he is 6-6, so his picks suck anyway 
 

Cellar-Door

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The USWNT has a lot of great alumnae, I really don't believe that once ESPN got Julie Foudy, Cat Whitehill was the best commentator left. She might be the worst permanent booth member in any sporting broadcast. Ever.
 

The Napkin

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Wait a second. You're telling me Germany ousted France? And now we're down to US-England-Japan-Germany?
 
I mean the US might have to beat Germany and then Japan? Really? And they say history doesn't repeat itself.