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Women's World Cup 2011 - General comments


Vic

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Thanks ! I'll read that with great interest

Here, the link for the Australia government answer to the sports panel recommendations (last part of the report Sports Pathways to Success) :

http://www.health.gov.au/internet/budget/publishing.nsf/Content/budget2010-sport-pathways10.htm

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The women's world cup has been more than a bore until this one. The quality of play has ranged from pitiful to atrocious to only at times decent. And only USA 99 and possibly China 07 had anything resembling a world class event atmosphere.

But I like what I'm seeing so far - less players getting injured simply because they're in weak physical shape or a shot hit them, more great goals and less obvious weakling goalkeeper mistakes, less goals off set pieces a taxi cab ride away from the net, more speed, better passing and no surprise, other than for today's light show, the Germans are putting on a good world cup.

Agree. In this WWC there are matches not involving Brazil that have been entertaining. Don't think I could've said that about 2007. Maybe 1 or 2(?)

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Sweden leading the USA 2-0 :D Loser plays Brazil in the quarters.

I suspect that the americans are probably very happy to end up on the opposite side of bracket to Germany. By losing to Sweden, they face Brazil next but won't ever see Germany unless the two meet in the finals. They match up far better against Brazil then they do against Germany. The American are big and athletic and they have just enough technical abilities to not be overwhelmed by Brazil. So whatever they give away to brazil on the technical side, they far more then make up for on the physical side. So I think that they are happy with this outcome because their subsequent opponents would be ENG-FRA which should be no match and thus paving their way to the finals. Whereby they will get

beaten by Germany who match their physical advantage and is much more comfortable on

the ball.

As far as Canada, we could be like the yanks but we give away too big of an advantage on the technical side of the game (touches, passing) that our superior athleticism can't make up for. If we were just a liitle bit better with the ball, we would be there, we don't need to be like brazil.

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Maybe I'm missing something, but aren't the best NTs competing in the men's WC? I agree that FIFA is run by a bunch of crooks who put money above all else, but none of that nonsense is on the player's minds when its time to get to business and a WC kicks-off.

Also "never more than 3 or 4 teams that have a hope of winning" = huge exaggeration. That's actually more true for the WWC than the men's WC.

Do you seriously think that the African, Asian and CONCACAF teams are better than several SA and EURO sides who don't even qualify to get there? Most other sports use pools of the best national teams regardless of where they come from, if all the teams come from the same part of the world- well, so be it. As for predicting which teams will win the MWC, you may have a hard time predicting, but for myself and most of the people I know, I can't remember when there's been a time I couldn't have picked 4 teams and guaranteed the winner would come out that group of 4. Upset wins in the 1/4 finals don't matter. If you didn't have Spain in 2010, Italy in 2006, Brazil in 2002, France in '98, Brazil in '94 for instance picked out of 4 top teams of those years, you are pretty poor at evaluating national levels of play.

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The 1/4 Finals begin Saturday and there is only one favourite missing, no not Canada but Norway the Aussies 2011 victim. they eliminated Canada in 2007.

All the discussion about Canada's failure was not a surprise according to the bookies. How bad they were was and the bookies got it wrong in the CAN/NIG match.

So the only dog to make it is Australia. I wonder what's happening in Norway as their team were even bigger chokers. I watched the first two matches and they are

still playing route 1 soccer.

The favourites are:

Germany over Japan

France over England

Sweden over Australia

Brazil over USA

I agree with the first three but I think the USA will win.

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1. Norway is the same population as B.C.

2. They met an Australian team that outshot, matched in possession and could have easily beat Brazil. The Aussies have a couple of impact players in midfield, a couple of prodigies, a lot of speed and are extremely well organized.

Norway also had plenty of chances against Australia... Pedersen top of the six, Thorsnes three or four good strikes, Ronning the crossbar late at 1-1. They just couldn't finish.

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1. Norway is the same population as B.C.

2. They met an Australian team that outshot, matched in possession and could have easily beat Brazil. The Aussies have a couple of impact players in midfield, a couple of prodigies, a lot of speed and are extremely well organized.

Norway also had plenty of chances against Australia... Pedersen top of the six, Thorsnes three or four good strikes, Ronning the crossbar late at 1-1. They just couldn't finish.

Norway are asking lots of questions here's a link to a forum with many comments and links to articles about their failure.

http://www.womensfootball.eu/forum/index.php?PHPSESSID=c39423f711e3b5d56cd0956e79ec8d6e&topic=6620.300

Norway's football chief Nils Johan Semb is determined to improve the nation's women's football. On Wednesday evening their World Cup adventure finished with a 2-1 loss to Australia in the last group match.

"This sends us the signal that the demands of international women's football are becoming tougher. We have to admit it and assess ourselves to find out how to keep up. That is the key to competing in future championships", said Semb.

Along with the rest of Norway's delegation he was disappointed that the tournament is already over for them, but he is already starting to plan the route back. "We have already increased the support for the youth teams by 30 percent this season, and that will increase again next year. We must also see how we can better follow up the senior players. We have to look at the league structure at the top level and make the Toppserien even tougher. Perhaps we need fewer teams in the Toppserien than the present twelve", he said.

The 2012 Olympics are already out of the picture for Norway. The three next big championships are the European Cup in Sweden in 2013, The World Cup in Canada in 2015 and the Rio de Janeiro Olympics in 2016.

"We need to set ourselves long-term goals, and aim to develop quick and tough individual players. We must optimise the players' everyday experience. These are some of the thoughts, and it must be possible", said Semb, who thought it was a pity they did not achieve a better result in the last match, which was their best of the tournament. "We underperformed in the first two matches, but not against Australia", he said. He emphasized that the level of football in this World Cup is the best ever, and this is a positive trend for women's football.

"This championship shows there has been a big development in the breadth. Some of the best nations, Brazil, USA and Norway, have stepped back a little while the others are stepping up", said Semb.

The national youth teams are developing well, with silver in the European Cup for the Under-19s, who are also in next year's Under-20 World Cup in Uzbekistan. The Under-16s have beaten both France and Germany in friendlies. "That promises well for the coming years. Now we must make sure the U-19s get the best results next year, and that the younger teams follow on. These players are tomorrow's A-team, and they are absolutely there in the plans for the 2016 Olympics", said the chief.

Mari Waagaard Thomassen http://www.fotball.no/Landslag_og_toppfotball/Landslag/A-kvinner/Alt-om-VM-2011/Semb-/

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Population of countries in the Women's World Cup Quarter-Finals:

USA - 312

Brazil - 190

Japan - 128

Germany - 81

England - 62

France - 65

Australia - 22

Sweden - 9

The top six on that list are not just big in player pool, their women's programs benefit from funds taxed off revenues from their men's leagues and federations.

The only two countries below 65 million and anomalies are Australia and Sweden. Why they are there is a no-brainer:

a) they have great well-run and sponsored national leagues

B) they are countries that invest heavily in sport

c) they have great coaching.

We threw a lot of money in a short period of time at our team. Sweden and Australia have both been doing it longer and balancing it with league play. They develop 250 women, from whom they cull the top active 10% at any period in time. The keyword here is active - and fresh.

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Population of countries in the Women's World Cup Quarter-Finals:

USA - 312

Brazil - 190

Japan - 128

Germany - 81

England - 62

France - 65

Australia - 22

Sweden - 9

The top six on that list are not just big in player pool, their women's programs benefit from funds taxed off revenues from their men's leagues and federations.

The only two countries below 65 million and anomalies are Australia and Sweden. Why they are there is a no-brainer:

a) they have great well-run and sponsored national leagues

B) they are countries that invest heavily in sport

c) they have great coaching.

We threw a lot of money in a short period of time at our team. Sweden and Australia have both been doing it longer and balancing it with league play. They develop 250 women, from whom they cull the top active 10% at any period in time. The keyword here is active - and fresh.

It comes down to the same problem that our men's team has which is there is no professional league domestically. The top teams in the world cup this year have a solid domestic club structure. There are few clubs in Canada, and even they would have to be guests in an American league in order to have top competition.

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Apologies x 10, just saw this now.

As far as official communiques the CSA has disappeared off the face of the earth. They were averaging two articles a day on their website for the past couple of months but after our blowout the CSA has been silent for eight days and counting. Probably a combination of a well-deserved holiday, depression and nothing to say beyond the obvious. One of those times you have to close the door and unplug the phone to stay sane.

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Caitlin Foord of Australia has been named as the Hyundai Best Young Player at Germany 2011

1475400_FULL-LND.jpg

1. Caitlin Foord rocked the World Cup.

2. She shut down her wing against Marta and the Brazilians when they went after her and then again against Norway's direct attack and Sweden.

3. More impressively, she was great at running upfield with the ball out of the right side and generating the attack quickly and intelligently.

4. She's 16.5 years old.

5. She's one of four 16/17 year olds on the Australian team, three of whom played considerably.

In 2007 Tom Sermanni taught the women's soccer community speed. This year he taught us age.

http://www.fifa.com/womensworldcup/organisation/media/newsid=1475411

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