WWC Knockout round predictionsI

I know the first game has already started, but what are your predictions for this round?

France. ✔

Germany
Australia

The other game depends on who shows up.

This is the commentary we are subjected to..

Ian Darke: Japan have 67% of possession, Germany have 33%

Julie Foudy: yeah, and Japan is keeping the ball pretty well, too!

So, I'll bet the value of secondary market semi-finals tickets just crashed....

Interesting tidbit.

If Sweden wins tomorrow Germany misses the Olympics as well. UEFA are using the WWC as the qualifiers.

Great Britain is in as host. France earned a spot with the win over England. I'm not sure what happens if Sweden loses- playoff, I think.

Japan really outplayed the Germans. Quite a game.

Purplegeezer wrote:This is the commentary we are subjected to..

Ian Darke: Japan have 67% of possession, Germany have 33%

Julie Foudy: yeah, and Japan is keeping the ball pretty well, too!

Swiped and adapted from someone's Tweet:

Take a swig of Pliny every time DiCicco interrupts and/or contradicts Chastain.

Thankfully they have Chastain in the studio so we don't have to listen to her for a full 90 minutes.

I like Ian Darke. Julie Foudy is not doing it for me. Much of the in-game and studio commentary lacks much in the way of insight about the players. For instance there is almost no mention of where they played college ball, which I think matters even if they have been in the pros a while. When Stephanie Cox was subbed into the Sweden game for more attacking, no one noted that she was playing on the same flank as Megan, her long-time college teammate, with whom she had vast experience playing a possession-style game. I'd like to hear more about how the North Carolina heritage of players such as Heather O. affects the US strategy. OK, so my pro-college bias is showing, but these types of insights could make the game more involving for me.

It also got tiring after multiple times of them not being able to correctly identify the amount of time remaining in the game.

Maybe they don't teach simple math at Stanford?

Backside Defender wrote:It also got tiring after multiple times of them not being able to correctly identify the amount of time remaining in the game.

So true. Apparently, to be an ESPN commentator you don't need to know that extra time goes until 120'.

HA! The whole time they were talking about "this being the last chance" at 115 mins I was like man, that's a bold prediction with 5 mins left.... Or did they chance the 2nd half of overtime to 10 mins when I wasn't looking??

Hahaha who was more incompetent: the officials, or the commentators?

DaTruRochin wrote:Hahaha who was more incompetent: the officials, or the commentators?

Do not get me started on that one...