I’ve mostly been staying away from the discourse for obvious reasons but these players were just not set up to succeed. I can’t fathom how this is the same man who has such an incredible tenure in the NWSL. Clearly not cut out for national team play. None of the decisions he made were to win and that’s not nor has it ever been the culture of this team. Honestly, she should’ve been fired after the Olympics and he should definitely be fired now. Not letting Alex Morgan be Alex Morgan this tournament and having an healthy Catarina Macario play only 7 minutes in the Olympics speaks volumes about Vlatko’s competency at this level. Everything about this was an embarrassment and I really feel for the players. As is now usual I guess, Tobin and Christen really hit the nail on the head on re-cap. It’s almost impressive to take a group of players this talented and get them to play this poorly.
Excited for tonight. Will be tough to watch since I've got to wash the dog but it'll be on the TV for sure.
I'm not completely blind am I - that penalty just now in the Sweden - Japan game, is a clear penalty yeah? You can clearly see in the replay that the Swedish player stood on the ankle of the Japanese player, causing her to fall over. You can see the boot get caught on her stud. Yet the BBC commentator won't shut up about it, calling it a simulation offence, justice that the penalty was missed, baffled VAR didn't intervene. Feel like I'm watching a different game.
What’s funny is that a) they’re out now, too, so like, such an inferiority complex to talk trash about other teams (that you couldn’t even beat), and b) I legit can’t think of a single player that said anything along these lines once.
Definitely expected the Dutch and Japan to win out of these two. This WC remains wildly unpredictable. What Spain is doing despite ten or eleven of their best players being exiled from the team is impressive. Especially after the Japan loss.
Maybe referring to all the commercials that Nike and Fox did leading into the tournament? Just very funny she made those comments and then didn't put away her chances leading to their exit.
NED played stupid games, didn’t win a goddamn thing. A lotta chatter for a team that’s only defeated the US once back in 1991. And I believe they’ve had less than 5 goals against us in the time since. Was really hoping for Japan to pull through. All in on Australia now
Happy for the players, already angry at the spinning of the narrative around Vilda. Hopefully a guaranteed medal gives the players some leverage but he’ll probably just get his contract extended
Australia really lacking quality in the final third. Feels like it might take something special for them to get back in this.