sloth8

An interesting article about attendance numbers for this World Cup. Of note, total ticket sales are just over 1 million while the 2015 edition had 1.3 million. https://www.theguardian.com/football/2019/jun/18/womens-world-cup-empty-seats-fifa-france-2019 Also the David Squires' cartoon re: VAR in the France v. Nigeria match is great: https://www.theguardian.com/football/ng-interactive/2019/jun/18/david-squires-on-the-womens-world-cup-goals-and-good-old-var

Group C has definitely been the most entertaining group so far. I thought Australia had shot themselves in the foot after that opening loss to Italy, but credit them for fighting back against Brazil and getting the necessary goal difference against Jamaica to move them into second spot. They now have a very winnable match against Norway. Definitely a more favourable draw for them since Brazil will likely be playing France. Italy, meanwhile, top the group and are rewarded with a match against Nigeria or China.

Hume's current club, FC Pune City, are in financial trouble and are behind on paying their players and staff. Hume petitioned the All Indian Football Federation regarding his unpaid wages. An agreement is now in place to pay Hume in two installments, but I doubt he will be returning to the club in the fall. https://sportscafe.in/articles/football/2019/jun/10/isl-fc-pune-city-promise-to-pay-iain-humes-pending-wages-in-two-instalments I would love to see him play in the CPL.

Jackson was released by St. Mirren after his contract expired on May 31. https://www.stmirren.com/news/club/all-news/2897-squad-update In the end, he played 32 games for the club last season and scored 6 goals.

Somebody updating the Wikipedia page for the USMNT has the matches down as being in Vancouver and St. Louis... No sources cited of course, so take that information with a grain of salt.

The format for qualifying won't be confirmed until July 2019, but it has been reported that Victor Montagliani wants to change the format for CONCACAF so that teams aren't eliminated from qualifying so quickly. My understanding is that FIFA decided, back in 2015, that the same number of spots would be allocated for each confederation. So CONCACAF still has 3.5 spots, but the format of the inter-confederation playoffs will not be announced until the preliminary draw in July 2019.

Here are the post game comments from his manager and media pundits: https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/47728028

Jackson gets the start up front for St. Mirren against St. Johnstone. Had his penalty saved at 8mins.

Just for fun, I decided to look back and see when Canada's last competitive fixtures were with the other League A teams: Mexico – 2016 2-0 L in Mexico City (2018 WCQ) United States – 2011 2-0 L in Detroit (2011 GC) Costa Rica – 2017 1-1 D in Houston (2017 GC) Honduras – 2017 0-0 D in Frisco (2017 GC) Panama – 2013 0-0 D in Denver (2013 GC) Haiti – 2007 0-2 W in Miami (2007 GC) T&T – 2000 4-0 L in Port of Spain (2002 WCQ) Martinique – 2013 0-1 L in Los Angeles (2013 GC) Cuba – 2012 3-0 W in Toronto (2014 WCQ) Curaçao - never (also applies to when they were the Netherlands Antilles) Bermuda – 1992 0-0 D in Hamilton, Bermuda (1994 WCQ)

Thanks for the update. So, if you're in Canada, you are geoblocked from watching CNL games on both CONCACAF Go and FloFc. What are they going to do when it comes to League A games then?? Highlights on Twitter?

After digging around on the official CONCACAF Nations League Twitter account, they are advertising the games as being streamed on FloFc (a Texas-based company). https://www.flofc.com/ They charge $12.50 per month (presumably USD) and are listing all the CNL qualifying games. They also appear to be the streaming service that DC United now uses... I haven't tried registering.

It is giving me the "no passes available" regardless of whether or not I am logged in. I agree that they are not ready for this. Good thing Canada's final game is being played at home.

Last week I logged into my CONCACAF Go (Oz) account to see if it still worked. I was able to watch past matches and highlights from CNL qualifying no problem. I tried it today though and now the only video content that actual works are short "clips" from past games. After I logged in, it also displayed a box stating "no passes available". It seems as though CONCACAF is getting ready to put up the paywall before Matchday 4. The FAQ section for Oz hints that there will be the following subscription options: day pass, season pass, and monthly subscription. No reference to prices. Does anybody have any more information?

I liked what I saw from Hellstrom in the friendly against Sweden and am glad to see that she is on the roster. Hopefully she gets some decent playing time.

Labbé will be featured in a TSN Original series entitled "One Heavy Medal". It will air today on Sportscentre as part of Bell Let's Talk initiative. https://www.tsn.ca/video/tsn-original-one-heavy-medal-trailer%7E1597805/tsn-original-one-heavy-medal-trailer~1597805