2010 U20 World Cup

[Saviola7]

Would you say the 7,000 they reported was accurate?

Tough to say. I'm pretty bad at judging numbers. I'd say the one side was about 70% full while the other side was 20% full (ends were completely empty). Given that it's a 30,000 seat stadium, that seems about correct.

[Free kick]

I hope the Americans will take the lesson and review their program. It is no more sufficient to put people with great athletic abilities on the field to win games. Women soccer has gone up a higher level. Natural feeling of the game, anticipation, technical abilities take more and more importance. I agree with Vic that ball control is a good indicator of your level of play. Being out-possessed three times out of four, Americans deserved to loose.

This reminds me when I was playing broomball during winter at a provincial elite tournament when I was in my early twenties. We were a bunch of young fellows, top-shaped, and we had made it to semi finals against a team of elder men you could tell just looking at them they were not fit looking more like beer drinkers. Moreover they had only one replacement. We were thinking before the game how easy it would be to beat them. How wrong we were! Those fellows knew how to play the game and they showed us the best passing play I have ever seen. By the time the game was over, we were exhausted, having barely touched the ball and lost.

If USA is to regain its dominating situation on the world scene for wowen, they have to change their focus and recruit ladies on their programs with maybe lesser athletic but more soccer abilities. As a comparison, Wayne Gretzky, one of the greatest hockey players of all-times, was not the biggest, hardest shooting and hitting, fastest player around. However, its sense of the game and an exceptionnal peripheric vision more than compensated his somewhat lesser athletic abilities.

Since we tend to copy our southern neighbours, I hope any american move towards more talented soccer will be followed by CSA and that our soccer will also evolve by the same token. That USA defeat is good news for north american soccer if it may lead us to new levels of play.

I agree. Its amazing how things have evolved so rapidly compared to the inaugural U19 tournament in Canada. At that time, it seems there were so few girls who could barely kick a ball. Canada was dominant but lost in the final and it was pretty unanimous here that if and when the rest of world starts to take to the game seriously, we are in trouble because we are fielding athletes instaed of soccer players. Sure enough, thats exactly what has happened. You have said the exact same thing about the americans because when it comes to soccer culture we are mirror images of one another. The big difference being that ( because of their size and $$$ invested in soccer) they have this ability to reverse course much more quickly than we do.

[Vic]

Despite 45% possession Germany annihilate South Korea 5-1. All five goals come from players on club teams in the women's Bundesliga, with Alexandra Popp bagging two and sewing up the golden boot.

In the other much closer semi-final Nigeria scores the only goal of the game in the second minute to defeat Colombia 1-0. Almost every single stat (shots at goal, on goal, corners, possession, etc) is even.

The Germans are of course masters of technical play and the Nigerians have a world of pace, but given the finalists you could surmise that size does not hurt you in the U20 women's game. It will be interesting to see if the Nigerians can disrupt the Germans in the final Sunday.

[amacpher]

Yeah, I really don't know. A fan gave her a flag on that stick ... she went over to her bench, and somehow the flag came off. It seemed to me that she wasn't originally intending to use the stick as a weapon, but just happenend to be holding it when the altercation with the coach began. I had suspected that something was said, but again, I don't know.

It was the corner flag. It's becoming a new tradition. When a stadium hosts its last match of the tournament, players often take the corner flag as a souvenir after the match. A few of the men did the same thing in South Africa after the last match played at the stadiums down there.

From what I've heard a member or members of the USA team tried to take the corner flag from Sunday. Then Sunday obviously took issue with that and a melee ensued...

[Vic]

The obvious question is why did they try to grab it from her?

[amacpher]

The obvious question is why did they try to grab it from her?

Not sure exactly, but surely sour grapes entered the thinking. Maybe USA thought their celebrations were over-the-top, but you can't really blame the Nigerians for being thrilled!

A bit like Jose Mourinho v Victor Valdes after Inter beat Barca in the CL last season.

[Vic]

I can't remember where but I seem to remember hearing it was Lindsay Tarpley's husband.

Women are really bad for over the top celebrations.

[navycyr]

Great win for Germany (2-0) over Nigeria. They redeemed themselves for their 3rd place in the european qualifying round. Great effort by Popp to score the first goal and a deserved golden boot. Your best players have to be at their best if you are to win a high level competition. Popp stood up and Germany won. Unfortunate for Nigeria allowing a second goal at 90 + 3 on a corner kick that found a german head then the goal post and bounced back on a nigerian defender before getting in the net.

[Pete K]

Great win for Germany (2-0) over Nigeria. They redeemed themselves for their 3rd place in the european qualifying round. Great effort by Popp to score the first goal and a deserved golden boot. Your best players have to be at their best if you are to win a high level competition. Popp stood up and Germany won. Unfortunate for Nigeria allowing a second goal at 90 + 3 on a corner kick that found a german head then the goal post and bounced back on a nigerian defender before getting in the net.

Didnt the Germans come 3rd at U17 qualifying, not U20? And the US U20 assistant BJ Snow is Tarpley's husband. The German's really did put on a clinic. They were fun to watch.

[navycyr]

Didnt the Germans come 3rd at U17 qualifying, not U20? And the US U20 assistant BJ Snow is Tarpley's husband. The German's really did put on a clinic. They were fun to watch.

Thanks for correcting my mistake ! With both U17 and U20 world cup I mixed up teams. In fact that U20 German team did not qualify for the final round of the UEFA U19 2009 tournament finishing second in group 7 in the qualifying round. This is a worst result than a 3rd place but we may doubt about that team motivation when they knew they were already qualified as the host team. Such an early elimination was certainly an incitative to work harder and prepare well for a tournament held at home. They definitely learned the lesson !