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The Ladies Excuse Me: WC 2015

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    The Ladies Excuse Me: WC 2015

    Tournament proper begins a week today, but yesterday Canada hosted England in their last pre-tournament friendly.

    Decent match. England dominated the first twenty minutes, then Sophie Schmidt scored a peach of a goal and the air kinda went out of the visitors. No more scoring, but the opportunities were all Canada's — except a late crossbar to remind Erin McLeod to watch her positioning.

    I'm really looking forward to this competition. The home team's matches will have big noisy kid-filled crowds and, with luck, the rest of the games will be well attended too.

    #2
    The Ladies Excuse Me: WC 2015

    Also looking forward to it. Curious that there are only 6 stadia for 24 teams v. 2011's 9 stadia for 16 teams. Surprised to see no matches in Toronto. Is Moncton the 2015 equivalent of Manaus?

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      #3
      The Ladies Excuse Me: WC 2015

      Heh. It's a big deal for Moncton, they don't get too many international competitions.

      There aren't just aren't that many soccer stadia available in Canada for a competition like this. I don't think there's a suitable venue available in Toronto, for example. BMO was out of commission for the first couple of months of MLS. To have the WWC on top of that would mean Toronto FC would barely have a home game until July. And Rogers Center is full of Blue Jays and CFL.

      There's been ongoing controversy/complaints about games being played on artificial turf too. The players don't like it, and point out that if it was the men's WC the organisers have found the $3 million for temporary grass. There's no question the facilities aren't the best, just the best the country can botch together.

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        #4
        The Ladies Excuse Me: WC 2015

        Aren't Moncton also trying to boost the stadium size to ultimately attract a Maritimes CFL Franchise, Amor?

        Looking forward to the tournament. I'm sure Canada will do everyone proud as hosts.

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          #5
          The Ladies Excuse Me: WC 2015

          USA are going for the England circa 2006 mode of pre-tournament complacency.

          From ESPN

          "The U.S. team will arrive in Canada as the favorite. Sure, Germany currently holds the No. 1 spot in the world rankings, but that is just some mathematical calculation. Only the Americans will arrive at the World Cup with the stated expectation of winning it."

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            #6
            The Ladies Excuse Me: WC 2015

            Now Blatter's been re-elected, I trust they're all being sent the skin-tight shorts as we speak?

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              #7
              The Ladies Excuse Me: WC 2015

              I've been looking through the official squad lists. In addition to the great Homare Sawa, Formiga of Brazil is also participating in her sixth World Cup. Christie Rampone will turn 40 during the tournament and is the oldest player, whilst Gloriana Villalobos of Costa Rica is still only 15.

              There are a lot of very young squads with average ages of about 23 whilst the US is averaging over 28.

              Anyone who has the Panini album will be a bit confused by the Japan squad. In their wisdom Panini have based their stickers on Japan's Asian Games squad, for which most European sides didn't release players. Hence six players in the Panini album won't be in Canada and WC winners and national team regulars Kumagai, Ogimi, Ohno, Kinga, Ando all failed to make the album.

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                #8
                The Ladies Excuse Me: WC 2015

                Rogin the Armchair Fan wrote: Now Blatter's been re-elected, I trust they're all being sent the skin-tight shorts as we speak?
                The music in Sepp's head whenever someone mentions womens football

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                  #9
                  The Ladies Excuse Me: WC 2015

                  Amor de Cosmos wrote: Decent match. England dominated the first twenty minutes, then Sophie Schmidt scored a peach of a goal and the air kinda went out of the visitors. No more scoring, but the opportunities were all Canada's — except a late crossbar to remind Erin McLeod to watch her positioning.
                  Canadian-centric view.

                  Lovers of traditional English virtues will be delighted to hear of their team's performance. Disjointed and toothless, wildly overly direct and unimaginative, unable to string three passes together, treating the ball as if it was 500 degrees and would burn the feet if possession was held on to for longer than a millisecond. It could have been any English pre-World Cup friendly from the last four decades.

                  The English commentators view was play like that against France and go for four or five.

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                    #10
                    The Ladies Excuse Me: WC 2015

                    AdC, or anyone else...Are you going to any games ?

                    Here's hoping for a USA-Canada knockout round rematch.

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                      #11
                      The Ladies Excuse Me: WC 2015

                      Cal Alamein wrote: Also looking forward to it. Curious that there are only 6 stadia for 24 teams v. 2011's 9 stadia for 16 teams. Surprised to see no matches in Toronto. Is Moncton the 2015 equivalent of Manaus?
                      Toronto/Hamilton are out because Toronto hosts the Pan-Am Games pretty soon.

                      or maybe just Toronto, then.

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                        #12
                        The Ladies Excuse Me: WC 2015

                        jason voorhees wrote: AdC, or anyone else...Are you going to any games ?

                        Here's hoping for a USA-Canada knockout round rematch.
                        Vancouver hosts group C — Japan, Cameroon, Switzerland, and Ecuador. I'm guessing there'll be plenty of seats available at BC Place (60,000 capacity) for any of those games. However the group D match between Nigeria/USA will be also be played there on June 16th. That I will take in if possible. I'm sure the US will win, but the Nigerians will knock lumps out of them on the way.

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                          #13
                          The Ladies Excuse Me: WC 2015

                          Thanks AdC and Jefe for the info. On the one hand, good for Canada for apparently not pissing away many millions to build/upgrade stadia, but sucks that every match is on the plastic stuff.

                          Would Moncton be the smallest town to host a wc match?

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                            #14
                            The Ladies Excuse Me: WC 2015

                            Artificial turf controversy conclusion.

                            It did mean BC Place got a much needed new rug — inaugurated today when the Whitecaps take on Salt Lake — but the whole episode left a sour taste. Especially when you consider the brown bags full cash FIFA has salted away.

                            Moncton has 70,000 pop. There must have been somewhere smaller I'd have thought.

                            Ironically/sadly Moncton Stadium had natural grass, but was required to rip it up to match the other WC stadia.

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                              #15
                              The Ladies Excuse Me: WC 2015

                              I think Moncton could safely be said to be the smallest town ever to do anything.

                              Moncton is so overlooked that even Stan Rogers didn't sing a song about the place and that guy bled Maritimes.

                              (Talking of Stan Rogers, I recently "discovered" his son, Nathan who is just all kinds of ridiculously awesome).

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                                #16
                                The Ladies Excuse Me: WC 2015

                                TheFourMarys wrote: Aren't Moncton also trying to boost the stadium size to ultimately attract a Maritimes CFL Franchise, Amor?
                                The CFL has been testing a "tenth team" maritime option ever since I've lived in Canada. It's usually Halifax or Moncton, and nothing has ever happened. For five seasons they ran "Touchdown Atlantic" — basically one Eastern Conference game per season in one of the two maritime cities. Interest waned however, with only 15,000 showing up in 2013.

                                With the WC and Pan-Am games pushing CFL teams out of home stadia, you'd have thought this would be an excellent time to test market the Maritimes properly. Instead the CFL is playing them in Fort McMurray.

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                                  #17
                                  The Ladies Excuse Me: WC 2015

                                  Lugano (1954) and Sandviken (1958) both had a population around 20000 when they held World Cup matches.

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                                    #18
                                    The Ladies Excuse Me: WC 2015

                                    I'm an Atlas-reading Geography nut and I literally have no clue as to where Fort McMurray might be.

                                    I think Antibes in 1938 holds the record for smallest town to host a World Cup game.

                                    The destruction of Moncton's grass is just scandalous.

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                                      #19
                                      The Ladies Excuse Me: WC 2015

                                      Find Edmonton on a map and move several inches north.

                                      Centre of the Canadian oil industry. Awash in money, until last December, now depopulating fast.

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                                        #20
                                        The Ladies Excuse Me: WC 2015

                                        Antibes had about 25000 in 1938.

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                                          #21
                                          The Ladies Excuse Me: WC 2015

                                          USA 0-0 KOR. That was painful to watch.

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                                            #22
                                            The Ladies Excuse Me: WC 2015

                                            Not going to this as we couldnt make the holiday entitlements coincide.
                                            Partly glad in a way because of the ongoing FIFA shite though its a shame that the sins of the fathers should be inherited by the daughters.

                                            Its France next time round I believe and hopefully we'll have a 2/3 week driving holiday ala the last one in Germany. Maybe not driving a mini bus of 10-12 year olds around though this time.

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                                              #23
                                              The Ladies Excuse Me: WC 2015

                                              Can anyone tell me the last match where the USA looked like World Cup winners?

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                                                #24
                                                The Ladies Excuse Me: WC 2015

                                                In the canyons of their minds.

                                                However Germany Men 2002 is cautionary note for anyone thinking of writing them off. Utter self-belief based on nothing more than the name of your team can sometimes be enough to pull it off.

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                                                  #25
                                                  The Ladies Excuse Me: WC 2015

                                                  Who do you make favourites, btw? I'm thinking France.

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