If you make yourself big in the box and get a hand on a ball, you deserve to get called. That's the rule.
I still didn't see the play and didn't note where and when it happened. Seemed it only got casual mention in the broadcast and nobody thought it was a non call from what I heard. Your interpretation is much different than mine and frankly I hate most hands calls because the vast majority are an inadvertent arm with a player on the line on a free kick and the opponent bangs the ball purposely into the line hoping to get a cheap call. Which is exactly what happened to Canada in the Olympics when Rampone purposely slammed the ball right into a Canadian defender looking for the cheap call. I hate those calls when they occur.
The early Swiss opportunity was not a chance. She did not test the keeper, nor get it remotely close to goal. She blew it. It was a missed chance at best. She should have finished and it was a dangerous opportunity, but it was nothing more materialized there.
of course it was a chance and if the player isn't a complete idiot and simply controls the ball there she has the whole net to put it in. I've coached soccer and would lose my mind when a player blows an opportunity like that. Stop the ball first, dammit. These players aren't good enough to kick one timers and only kidding themselves when they try **** like that. Thing is the player was wide open in easy scoring range and the ball DID find her. Without the player completely flubbing it its a goal against.
The second opportunity was a solid chance, but even with our sloppy defending we were very sound positionally, especially McLeod to make the save. There was one spot for that ball to go and we had it covered.
Because Mcleod is the best in the game and no other reason. A swiss player was allowed all kinds of time in the box and to control ball and easily turn around and get a shot away. When you have a player one on one its a cardinal sin in soccer to allow them to get a shot off from gimme range. That was weak ass defending. Basically praying Mcleod is there. Otherwise its a goal.
Sessleman is brutal. Chapman is physical and hasn't been called for anything unreasonable. She manhandles her opponents and gets away with it because of her quality. This is a contact sport and she does her job to perfection so far throughout this tournament in a very similar way to Buchanan. Chapman has kept up with the pace of the games extremely well and she is very decisive with the ball, unlike Sessleman.
This would be the kind of comment from somebody that's never watched the team play before. Sesselman is large, physically dominating and has played much better than this for Canada. She is just back from a serious ACL injury and not playing like herself. She can at least box out opponents, get to headers, and win battles.
Chapman has already given up a penalty kick in this tournament and is an adventure out there that I swear will get another yellow or red card before the tournament is over. its because she's so small she has to physically battle. Which is a huge concern in the box because ANY time you make physical contact in the box, and she's doing this half a dozen times in a game, theres a risk of a penalty kick.
We got the easy side of the draw for sure but we put ourselves in this position by winning our group.
No, the draw put us in this position. Not getting to this point would have been considered a monumental failure. 16 of 24 clubs advance from first round, only the worst don't, and Canada had the easiest group stage in the tournament. To put it into perspective Canada has played all of group, one knockout, and still hasn't played a club in the top half of the draw. That's like a red carpet. That Canada was even gifted a questionable penalty kick in stoppage time to get the W that set us up in group stage just adds to how little this squad has done. We have 2 goals from play in 4 games. No team in the tournament has had worse offense.
There is nothing wrong with that. The parity in this tournament is really good.
No, actually it isn't. To this point Canada hasn't played a team that has advanced beyond group stage in the last decade. Next, no hosting team has EVER failed to advance in the history of this tournament. All Canada has done is barely hold serve. Not impressively either. They have looked tentative, uncertain, have lacked pace, lacked controlling tempo and have had long bouts of inconsistent play.
The only "legit" teams are USA, Germany and Japan by your qualification and we have done well against them in recent history for the most part. Of course we won't play a team of that quality until the end. England is ranked 6th and we handled them comfortably within the last year. Do they qualify as legit to you?
Any team in the top dozen is better than what we've faced. Even Switzerland, ranked 18th, gave us a real good scare.
When exactly have we ever done well against Germany, Brazil, US (only once in recent memory 3yrs ago)?
This team loses almost all the time against top clubs.
