Crazy that Group A was done before Germany and Colombia had played their second match.

Yeah, I thought something was wrong with the standings page the first time I looked through it this morning.

Australia and Nigeria through from Group B
Japan and Spain from Group C

Damn, Japan made a statement with the 4-0 demolition of Spain.

Yeah they are clinical and it's scary.

Gold medal winners out is a semi surprise, although Nigeria is looking good.

Any one watching live tomorrow morning? I'm driving home from Florida so need my zzzs. I figure driving 12-13 hours I can avoid spoilage until I get home.

I mean, we could foresee Canada crashing out of the WWC if we paid attention. The federation is broke, players haven't been paid, they can't figure out travel or housing. and they're old/injured, at least the better players are. Nigeria has excellent coaching from a tactical standpoint in Randy Waldrum and they've always caused problems for teams in the WWC. Now they've put it together to advance into the knockouts. I'm happy for Nigeria. Been rooting for them ever since Mercy Akide

I'd say Japan are the favorites based on how well they've played so far.

Rudyjax said:

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Any one watching live tomorrow morning? I'm driving home from Florida so need my zzzs. I figure driving 12-13 hours I can avoid spoilage until I get home.

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I'll wake up and watch it delayed. I can't give up that much sleep anymore.

Too bad the match isn't at 6am. I'd get up to watch that

akm91 said:

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Too bad the match isn't at 6am. I'd get up to watch that

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Yeah 6am is fine...2am, not so much

akm91 said:

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Too bad the match isn't at 6am. I'd get up to watch that

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Just watch it at 6am when you get up.

Interesting

Per FIFA, through 38 World Cup matches, attendance is up 41 percent.⁰⁰France 2019 averaged 18,319 spectators at this point, finished at 21,756.
⁰Australia / New Zealand 2023 is averaging 25,868.

— Steven Goff (@SoccerInsider) July 31, 2023

Aston94 said:

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jessexy said:

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I mean, we could foresee Canada crashing out of the WWC if we paid attention. The federation is broke, players haven't been paid, they can't figure out travel or housing. and they're old/injured, at least the better players are. Nigeria has excellent coaching from a tactical standpoint in Randy Waldrum and they've always caused problems for teams in the WWC. Now they've put it together to advance into the knockouts. I'm happy for Nigeria. Been rooting for them ever since Mercy Akide

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For the sake of the future of Women's soccer, having an Asian and African team advance to quarters would be ideal.

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Asia has been well-represented. Japan has won the WWC before and finished 2nd place. China is a WWC runner-up before and hosted twice.

Africa is playing catch-up for sure.

gougler08 said:

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akm91 said:

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Too bad the match isn't at 6am. I'd get up to watch that

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Yeah 6am is fine...2am, not so much

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100% stay up for the men's team, I'll probably still stay up for the women's. Watching on recording you're almost guaranteed to have it spoiled, so many different notifications to ignore somehow. Every site randomly thinks it's ok to blast the news everywhere

PatAg said:

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gougler08 said:

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akm91 said:

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Too bad the match isn't at 6am. I'd get up to watch that

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Yeah 6am is fine...2am, not so much

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100% stay up for the men's team, I'll probably still stay up for the women's. Watching on recording you're almost guaranteed to have it spoiled, so many different notifications to ignore somehow. Every site randomly thinks it's ok to blast the news everywhere

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Not if you get up and watch.

PatAg said:

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gougler08 said:

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akm91 said:

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Too bad the match isn't at 6am. I'd get up to watch that

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Yeah 6am is fine...2am, not so much

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100% stay up for the men's team, I'll probably still stay up for the women's. Watching on recording you're almost guaranteed to have it spoiled, so many different notifications to ignore somehow. Every site randomly thinks it's ok to blast the news everywhere

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Yup.

For once getting recently laid off and having an 8 week old will pay off

Knock out bracket is starting to take shape. This is a huge huge match for the US for so many reasons.

It determines :

Do they make the knock out stage at all?

Will they be 1E or 2E?

1E is so much better for. Ease of opponent and quality of life ( game times).

1E would play the 2nd place finisher of a group that Sweden is dominating. The other 3 teams appear to not nearly be as good as Sweden.

We need to win and make sure Vietnam doesn't blow up against the Netherlands or at least put up 3-4 goals on Portugal.

Need a better goal differential than Netherlands if we advance to get 1E.

1E plays at 9 pm Saturday night (CST) and 8 pm (CST) in the quarter finals

2E plays at 3 am and 5:30 am. Not sure if I remembered times exactly but close enough.

2E would also likely face Sweden and Japan back to back.

1E is unknown opponent and likely Spain in quarters

Welp.

It's easy to blame Vlatko and his tactics (or lack there of) but the players have also largely been unimpressive.

The literal alarm going off to start the second half was a little too spot on.

Is there precedence for firing a manager mid-tournament?

Completely coincidental that I'm asking during this US-Portugal game. I promise. Totally promise.

We've gotten seriously lucky not to go down the last few minutes.

If you didn't watch, you made a great decision. It was one of the most lifeless performances from the USWNT I've ever seen. There were no high points. None.

There's been a lot of talk about the world catching up to us. What I saw tonight proves not only the improvement of other nations but also the regression of the U.S.

Indecisive. Predictable. Lacking creativity. Uninspired. Playing not to lose.

I just moved to Sydney a month ago and am sad I will need to go to Melbourne for the game this weekend, not sure they'll make it far into the knockout rounds

Happy to advance, but the program needs an overhaul after this World Cup.
The world has caught up to us, the tactics tonight were awful, 4 goals in three games (Netherlands scored 8 tonight alone). zero creativity in the offensive third for almost 2 years now yet we keep trotting a clearly poor Morgan out there, and by rights they should be going home. And if/when they do go home after Sweden, it would be our worst showing ever.
A mess of a program right now. Relative to where it should be.

When a team underperforms, it inevitably becomes a conversation about tactics, managerial failings, players underperforming and/or not playing with enough heart/intensity.

I usually lean towards blaming tactics and the manager because it's an easier explanation especially when every player looks well below their best. What's more likely? That the manager has screwed up tactics/management or that 11 players have suddenly all decided that they don't care about the game as much and/or are having multiple bad games in a row?

And I especially don't buy the argument that the players don't play with enough intensity or passion when it comes to the USWNT in the WC. Because the WC is far and away THE premier tournament in the sport and it is not even close. If you want to be at all relevant in your sport, you have to succeed at the WC. Right or wrong, no one cares if you win the NWSL or even the European CL 5 times in a row. If you suck at the WC, you're an afterthought. So even if a player or even the entire team were complete divas only interested in their "brand" (looking at you Carli Lloyd), it would be completely illogical for them to say "Yeah, I'm going to half ass this WC because I need to protect my image/brand." Success at the WC is the ONLY way to actually have an image/brand.

In my opinion, the overwhelming issue is horrible management. There are fundamental problems in the entire association but in the short term, the team would be exponentially better with a better manager. It's the simplest, most plausible explanation for the majority of the underperformance we're seeing.

Vomit emoji

USA had just two sequences with five or more passes that entered the final 40% of the pitch with none of those sequences registering a touch in the penalty box.

— Yash (@Odriozolite) August 1, 2023

Netherlands and US advance from group E
England and Denmark from group D (sorry, as it stands now)