Women's Soccer

SoxFanInCali

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California. Duh.
I still expect Canada to get the job done, but they are past the hour mark against Costa Rica and it's still scoreless. Winner goes to the CONCACAF Qualifying Final, and much more importantly, will be going to Tokyo 2020. The loser stays home.

US-Mexico starts in a couple hours, with the same stakes.
 

SoxFanInCali

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California. Duh.
Canada finally break through in the 72nd minute.

Honestly, I can't believe it took that long. At every position, the Canada players look to be a step or 2 faster, and are passing it around at will.
 

InstaFace

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I need to learn more about this Jordyn Huitema for Canada, lead scorer in the qualifying tournament.

edit:
- Winger for PSG, for whom she is a squad player this year (alongside Worcester's Own Tanyon Sturtze Alana Cook!)
- From British Columbia. Brothers all played minor-league or college hockey
- Played in the women's 2nd division, the WPSL, at age 17. PSG then convinced her to forego college.
- 2017 Canadian U17 player of the year; made the senior WNT that year at the Algarve Cup, at age 15 (!).
- Played and scored for each of the U17s, U20s and senior WNT all in the same calendar year (2017)

that's what you'd call a meteoric rise. Kinda what Sydney Leroux was supposed to be, a decade ago.
 

OCST

Sunny von Bulow
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Jan 10, 2004
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The 718
Women’s Merseyside derby was to be played at Goodison for the first time- the women usually play in a little park somewhere else- but that game and PL games (I think) called off fo high winds. Almost sold out.
 

DJnVa

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Trinity Rodman (daughter of Dennis) just scored for US U20 WC finals.
 

67YAZ

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Everyone looked a little rusty that half, but the Courage still swarm forward into the attack.

Excited for the Res Stars to come back tonight. Losing Kerr is obviously a massive blow, but this team is so strong in the back and through the midfield that they should still find success. Hope against hope that they can conjure a more diverse attack and become less predictable. (Though, quite honestly, lumping the ball to Kerr was the best kind of predictable.)
 

67YAZ

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Lynn Williams was a monster all day and she nets the winner 4 minutes into stoppage time. Hard to see anything but the pandemic slowing down the Courage this season.
 

67YAZ

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A real shame the next 5 games won't be on real, free, tv.
Wish this was in free TV. From the online recaps, sounds like Lavelle is ripping it up tonight (though Naeher stuffed her 1v1!). The Red Stars back 4 seems disorganized, which is very concerning because that’s their bedrock. But Kealia Watt has been rampant on the left wing. They need some kind of offensive dynamo, would be huge if Watt can be the one to make things happen.
 

Marceline

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I signed up for a free trial of CBS all access so I could check this out. Kind of disappointed in that they are offering zero DVR capability for the NWSL games on there - just a live feed only.

Due to the scheduling and no DVR on the All Access, it's unlikely I'll be able to watch outside of the ones that air on actual CBS.

Also the iPad app sucks, they don't even have a way to disable captions. I tried on my phone (android) and at least the option for captions is there.

Edit: looks like the games will be rebroadcast next day on CBS Sports Network.
 
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67YAZ

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Looks like Houston & Utah played a burner today, a 3-3 draw with the Royals banging two in at 82' and 89' to share the points.

Thinking about the CBS All Access free trial to catch tomorrow's Red Stars-Thorns tilt. A short turnaround for players still getting their fitness, but both sides should be very motivated to grab a win. Against Carolina, the Casey Short-Kelia Watt combo down the wing was really dynamic. Portland will surely be keying on that defensively, so it will be interesting to see if Short and Watt can be as good. Because really, with Nagasato looking slow as the central playmaker and the back 4 playing like 4 strangers in a pickup game...the Red Stars need to force the issue somehow or Lindsey Horan is going to run all over them like Rose Lavelle did.
 

67YAZ

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The Red Stars heavily rotated the starting XI, and without Ertz in there, Horan is totally bossing this match for Portland. It's all one-way traffic so far, hard to picture Chicago holding out much longer or even getting it together enough to run an effective counter-attack.
 

67YAZ

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Red Stars swap keepers at half. They are serious about treating the pre-knockout games as pre-season.
 

67YAZ

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Somehow the Red Stars didn't concede. The Thorns were wasteful in the first half, and once the subs started coming in, the quality fell off dramatically. Kayla Sharples made a bunch of big pays at CB, looking forward to seeing more of that. But Chicago will be happy to have kept a clean sheet, Portland should be very disappointed not to have put this way early on.
 

67YAZ

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Red Stars-Courage kick off in about an hour.

Last time out, Chicago rotated all 11 starters and looked disjointed vs Portland. Would be nice to see the top-XI out today and see do they can find some rhythm. The Spirit still look like the top side the league, so this should be a good test of the Stars’ training this week.
 
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67YAZ

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Ertz is the best defensive mid in the world, but the Red Stars back line looks like a completely different unit with her at CB. Unfortunately, Ertz is also the best deep lying player maker Chicago has...so the Red Stars need to figure this out.

But they’re doing a much better job against the Courage today.
 
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67YAZ

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The Courage netted a well earned late goal. At least the Red Stars made them sweat it out this time.

Unlike last week, Watt got a lot of attention when on the ball. This left spaces open for Yuki to slide into, so she looked really good today while Watt spent a lot of time laying the ball off. Unfortunately, without a striker or right winger worth worrying about, it’s still all too simple for an organized defense.

The defense will be rock solid again with Ertz at CB. But moving her up to DM would provide at least some extra wrinkles to the attack. Dame needs to be very creative to solve this problem.
 
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steeplechase3k

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67YAZ

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Congrats, @steeplechase3k! My CBS All Access trial expired, so I need to catch the highlights.

These tournaments are crazy. The Courage look as strong as ever, though, heading into the season.
 

67YAZ

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Red Stars-Reign relegated to CBS All Access. Ugh. Can’t displace these back to back episodes of 48 Hours, even in a team’s home market.

Any, no Yuki tonight. She didn’t feature last match, either, which makes some sense of Romes is going to make the switch to a 4-3-3. That formation would seem to get the most out of their best attacking move so far - Short overlapping Watt on the wing - but Yuki is the most traditionally creative midfielder on the squad. On a team starved for goals, there has to be a way to get Watt & Yuki on the pitch together and some space To operate in.
 

67YAZ

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Red Stars advance on PKs. It was ugly. Cobbling together a picture of the game from twitter, seems like Chicago spent the last 70 minutes defending. They only broke forward when Ertz or Watt could dribble through multiple defenders - not a great tactical plan. But any backline featuring Ertz is going to be a bear to score on, so pray for PKs?

Watt is looking like she needs a USWNT call up.
 
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67YAZ

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Fire vs Sky Blue in tonight’s seminal, a match that appears destined to go to PKs. The squads have scored 5 goals in 8 matches combined.
 

67YAZ

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The jinx worked! St. Georges scores in the 8th minute for Chicago! This might actually be a match worth watching (if only CBS would put it on TV...).
 

67YAZ

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And a second 3 minutes later! What is even happening? This doubles the Red Stars' goal tally for the entire tournament so far.
 

67YAZ

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Sky Blue put in 2 inside 5 minutes - off a corner & an Ertz own goal. Gonna be a wild final 10 minutes.
 

67YAZ

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Hey, they’re finally on TV again!

Houston up already in the 15th minute. C’mon Red Stars, do Chicago proud the way the Fire can’t.
 

67YAZ

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Kristen Mewis walking off in tears in the 29th minute. Looks like a hamstring pull.
 
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67YAZ

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Congrats to the Dash, who showed great balance and depth across the roster to take this tournament. Chicago just doesn’t have the attacking threats to to make things happen. Turns out Sam Kerr is really hard to replace.
 

Titans Bastard

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I'm not leaving WUSA/NWSL/USWNT fandom, don't worry!
Hah. Just making a joke about the history of Online US Soccer Fandom, which is littered with extremely intensive and vitriolic debates over whether or not MLS is better than [insert random league here].
 

tmracht

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Hah. Just making a joke about the history of Online US Soccer Fandom, which is littered with extremely intensive and vitriolic debates over whether or not MLS is better than [insert random league here].
The answer is always it's no even if it's like the 4th tier of Lithuania. So annoying.

Back on topic those are some good numbers hopefully ratings stay high!
 

Titans Bastard

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Is it really? I thought some of the European teams had surpassed the us teams.
The Euro heavyweights like Lyon are probably better than any club in NWSL, but even the best Euro leagues are extremely top heavy.

The bottom half of the French league is semipro at best and would have no hope of competing in NWSL at all.


BTW, a more comprehensive Club World Cup type comp would be GREAT in women’s soccer.
 

67YAZ

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BTW, a more comprehensive Club World Cup type comp would be GREAT in women’s soccer.
Yes! Even just an OL/Barca/(Wo)Man City/Courage event would be fantastic.

The allocation/federation player system has done a very good job of creating a competitive league. And I take it as a very good sign that Houston could pull together a string, really well rounded squad without any federation players.