France 2019 Catch-All: June 7 - July 7

I think if the ref had given the VAR pen there, the Cameroon players would have rioted.

I thought Cameroon responded really well after VAR chalked off their goal and then England scored their third.

They could have all gone to pieces at that point, but they've been playing well.

Annnnnd... I take that back.

I have really enjoyed watching the half dozen matches over the last week.
After the US win over Chile, there were comments to the fact of the US women having the best and the second best team in the Cup. That is totally tongue in cheek but they sure are fun to watch.

Netherlands and Canada was fun. I was rooting for Canada so the ending was a bummer.
Cameroon and New Zealand was the epitome of heartbreaking and heartwarming.
There was another heartbreaking game, I believe it was Scotland where they were up 3-0 with ~20 minutes left and lost (or tied?) ending any hope of making it to the round of 16. (and something like it was their first World Cup appearance)

Yeah, that was Scotland - Argentina IIRC. It ended in a draw, which immediately eliminated the Scots.

Man, I hope these are just growing pains, because hooo-boy. At this rate, i'm going to go from "more technology is a good thing" to "let the players call their own fouls".

fangblackbone wrote:

I believe it was Scotland where they were up 3-0 with ~20 minutes left and lost (or tied?) ending any hope of making it to the round of 16. (and something like it was their first World Cup appearance)

Scotland were 3-0 with 15 minutes left, gave away a penalty deep in added time... saved the penalty... but then had to face a re-take because the Goalkeeper had moved too far off her line before the kick was taken.

Argentina scored the retake and the game finished 3-3, eliminating Scotland.

As someone who has been watching mystifying Scottish performances at major tournaments since 1978, it was basically the most Scotland thing ever, just edging out England allowing the Dutch to score at Euro 96.

The refereeing seemed solid in the games I watched in the group play...

Has something changed? There were a lot of non calls because of advantage which is as it should be.

I'm glad my memory isn't failing me too often. It has been hard to track who's playing who when you include the men's games I have been watching. The Canada - Mexico men's game was fun to watch. The US men's team still has collapses on defense but it was nice to see them win decisively against Guyana.

How was that not a goal? I'm cheering for Brazil and I thought that was good. The ref didn't do anything to indicate the grounds for disqualifying it, AFAIK. I didn't think the keeper had possession nor would I ever call that a handball.

Edit: Found this on Wikipedia, but there's no citation given:

"If a ball is in the air and both the goalkeeper and a field player of the opposing team are challenging for the ball, advantage usually goes to the goalkeeper because he or she is not able to protect themselves."

This would seem to match what the announcers are now saying about a foul being committed. Also, the player who scored didn't seem surprised when it was ruled out.

I see the Brazilian women have taken notes from the men's team, circa 2014.

Wait, are we sure this time?

Good VAR that time, correcting the human error on the offside call. Kind of blows my mind that it was initially disallowed.

I'm still going to say this is all Roger Goodell's fault somehow.

It has been pointed out that overtime in this game means our Friday opponents will be extra tired, if we win tomorrow.

On the other hand, they still will have received an extra day of rest. Maybe this just makes things more fair.

Stolen from the Guardian's MbM -

The future of football might involve an offside official whose only purpose will be to deliver the bad news to the players that the VAR lads have found the striker to be offside…again. If this newfangled VAR stuff had been around in Filippo Inzaghi’s day, every game would have taken about four hours.

With Pippo they'd turn VAR around and only go to the video if they thought he was accidentally onside.

The hot takes from the England Cameroon game are insane. From Phil Neville's "won't someone think of the children" post match interview to Cameroon trying to claim they were robbed and it was a miscarriage of justice because of the two correct VAR calls.

This France Brazil match has been spectacular entertainment.

I'm rooting for the USWNT, but if they don't win, frankly it'd be cool as hell if France doubled-dipped and became the reigning soccer champions of everything.

Mr Bismarck wrote:

With Pippo they'd turn VAR around and only go to the video if they thought he was accidentally onside.

Brazil look like they're spent now. They had that chance in the first half blocked by Mbock, but now there's not a lot of movement when they have the ball forward and they need off-ball runs.

It's not every match where during a crowd shot I think, "Oh thank god those fans have pants on."

onewild wrote:

The hot takes from the England Cameroon game are insane. From Phil Neville's "won't someone think of the children" post match interview to Cameroon trying to claim they were robbed and it was a miscarriage of justice because of the two correct VAR calls.

Eh, after the horrible play at countless turns by Cameroon and several deserved reds not given, I don't blame him.

That play by M'Bock t save the game for France though.

Prederick wrote:

That play by M'Bock t save the game for France though.

Yeah that was super good defense.

IMAGE(https://media3.giphy.com/media/l4q8cJzGdR9J8w3hS/source.gif)

Genuinely one of the highlights of the tournament.

And it's a cheap low blow, but....

Marta >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Neymar

Started streaming the USA-Spain match around the 30th minute. Things are set up for me to be disappointed.

Was hoping the Rapinoe yellow would be VARd into a red somehow.

Not a great game from Rapinoe, despite the penalty.

And boy, are Spain proving to everyone that the Group stage definitely isn't the knockout stages.

Well, the QF should be fun. The two tournament favorites, except neither looked particularly convincing getting here.

Whew.

Friday, gotta leave work early for that one.