Sunday knock outs

[Janik]

That was pace though, from both Debinha and particularly M'Bock Bathy.

[Wouter D]

The extra time is thoroughly entertaining. This is not often the case.

[hobbes]

Aye. Great defending. Lovely reverse ball out wide for the attacker too.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Yeah, great piece of defending

[Amor de Cosmos]

There it is.

[Janik]

And a lovely controlled finish Henry. She passed it into the corner.

[Toby Gymshorts]

Should have been a cutback for three. Good play.

[Janik]

France win. Probably good news for the atmosphere of the tournament.

[Diable Rouge]

France win. Probably good news for the atmosphere of the tournament.

One wouldn't give them much chance against the Americans, but overall they just about edged the play tonight.

[Patrick Thistle]

Brazil the best team to go home so far.

Diani was immense tonight. Think she might be my new favourite French player.

[Janik]

One wouldn't give them much chance against the Americans, but overall they just about edged the play tonight.

They won't be the favourites for once. I think that will help them. I'm still tipping France to win that game.

[Amor de Cosmos]

I hope you're right, but I'm not confident.

[Jah Womble]

Given that both France and the US won their groups as expected, I'm a little surprised that the draw has placed them to meet this early.

[Nesta]

Hosts and holders are almost always seeded to avoid each other till the final if they win all their games in mens world cups. Think 1966 is the last time that wasn't the case (excluding 2002, when ensuring Korea and Japan wouldn't meet took precedence).

[Nesta]

I mean, maybe it's just coincidence, but it's a long run of the coin coming up tails if so

[Kevin S]

Whereas Japan and Canada, who both won their groups in 2015, would have met in the semi final if England hadn't knocked out the hosts.

[delicatemoth]

That French winner was my favourite goal since 2016. Watching it from the angle that shows Henry's face all the way, you know that time slowed down for her, she saw that ball like a basketball, totally in the zone. Just great. I want France to win now just for that.

[Patrick Thistle]

She has played very well in the games I've watched. If work rate was rewarded in goals she would be one of the leading scorers.

[Janik]

The BBC showed the extraordinary post-match interview that Marta gave yesterday at half-time of one of the games today. The BBC has the words here but for once the content is geoblocked in the UK (she was being interviewed by Fox at the time). And the words alone don't give the full effect of what is a polemic. They don't convey the passion with which she was delivering her message to Brazilian girls, girls everywhere and indirectly indicting Brazilian (male) Football authorities. If US viewers didn't see it at the time, it looks like it should be available here:- https://www.foxsports.com/soccer/video/1555934787749
It's well worth watching if you can.

[Patrick Thistle]

Apparently the Cameroon team were told by their coach at half time that the referees were biased. Some team members shouted it was a "white world cup".

[Patrick Thistle]

(My source is the Metro though so, y'know)

[Janik]

I'm reasonably sure that is accurate. Other media outlets have had similar stories, the Cameroon coach used a post-match press conference to say he told his players at half-time that the referee wanted England to win and the BBC's touchline reporter fed back that the Cameroon players were making accusations of racism against match officials and FIFA in the tunnel at half-time in the game. It was included in the half-time analysis. Dion Dublin and Alex Scott's faces were a picture when they heard it. Dublin may even have said OFFS under his breath! And all because a perfectly good goal against them stood. Shouting racism in a situation like that harms actual cases of it.

It is also about as bad a case of bullying and intimidation of a match official that it's possible to imagine, short of actual physical assault. And that arguably happened as well with the shove in the back, though like the spitting it there is a benefit of the doubt to the Cameroon player there. Two red cards were nailed on (or should have been), two others the ref would have been well within her rights to show. And probably others for dissent as well. However the false accusations of racism are the most egregious part. The referee should have asked a FIFA official to disqualify Cameroon so she could abandon the game (and if she did and FIFA declined to throw Cameroon out on their arses at half-time, then shame on FIFA). She should not have been forced to deal with such people for another 45 minutes. She has now reportedly admitted she thought it was a penalty on Kirby and a red card for the foul on Houghton, but declined to give those decisions out of fear Cameroon would walk off the pitch. Which shows Cameroon's behaviour worked, but also raises concerns for the safety of England's players in that second half. They were unprotected against violent conduct. The game hadn't 'threatened to spiral out of control' as per that report, it was out-of-control if the ref cannot give appropriate sanctions for fouls and misconduct because of fear for the response.


As to what FIFA do now, that is really difficult. I worry that they will ban Cameroon entirely from the next World Cup. The team may deserve that, but as a course of action the damage it would cause to the sport in Cameroon would be immense. If that happened, I would expect the Cameroonian FA to simply abandon the Women's game. Long personal bans for the coach and certain players (years for the coach, multiple games for players) and a substantial fine for the federation would be better.

[Nesta]

Got to love Hope Solo's trolling though.

[Jah Womble]

Why, what did she say? I got the impression that Solo was displaying more sympathy for the Cameroon players than perhaps was warranted, but I didn't notice any trolling as such.

I had misgivings about her prior to this tournament (for the same reasons that most other folk did), but she's come across well as a pundit thus far.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Gotta say that I was listening to Garcia's coverage of Phil neville's reaction to this. It was fucking hilarious. Phil was never the sharpest tool in the box, but he's only slightly too bright and self aware to be in the British cabinet. my advice to him would have been to say very little indeed. Instead he said an awful lot. It would seem that cameroon completely lost the plot, but that puts you in a linguistic nightmare, and sends you down the path of saying words like 'naive' which is a dangerous minefield for a wide variety of reasons. I appreciate that it may not be that obvious from inside the UK, but to people from the outside, listening to people making statements about acceptable and unacceptable standards and behaviour, in an English accent sounds very different to four years ago.