New Women's football thread (inc World Cup) 2023-26

[Durhamfootman]

Now that was a game of football..... best match that I've seen in this tournament up to now

Defeat for the Erica's might have repercussions throughout the tournament. If they end up finishing second in their group, that puts them on the other side of the KO draw from England, assuming the lionesses don't stuff up their last match. France won't be happy, because they now face the very real possibility of having to play Germany in the round of 16

It really was a terrific match. Lots of physicality, plenty of skill, bags of drama, very open and end to end. Germany struggled to assert their dominance and Columbia ran themselves into the ground for the cause. Brilliant!

[mikesiva]

Morocco 1-0 South Korea!
Colombia 2-1 Germany!!

An exciting end to the second round of matches.

Norway 6-0 Philippines
New Zealand 0-0 Switzerland

Norway and Switzerland advance.

[Durhamfootman]

odd that some teams had played all their group matches and been eliminated before Germany had even played their second match

[Durhamfootman]

If you’re going to completely stuff up a football match, then it’s good to do it when you’ve already qualified for the KO’s

[mikesiva]

Japan 4-0 Spain!

Zambia 3-1 Costa Rica

Australia 4-0 Canada
Nigeria 0-0 Ireland

Advancing
Japan
Spain
Australia
Nigeria

[Durhamfootman]

Shocker from Canada

England can now avoid having to face a fired up Australia in the 16's by beating China.

England can perhaps avoid Germany in the QF's by beating China

you do know what's coming next, don't you?

[mikesiva]

Portugal 0-0 USA
Netherlands 7-0 Philippines

England 6-1 China
Denmark 2-0 Haiti

Advancing
Netherlands
USA
England
Denmark

The Americans look beatable this time around.

[Durhamfootman]

Indeed... USA are miles off the pace. From the very brief highlights I saw, Portugal hit the post from a powerful shot late in the game. USA were that close to going home early. Vietman were awful in their game against NL

England do their job nicely. I'll watch that tonight

[Durhamfootman]

Oh blimey, Sarina W completely changed England's shape for the China game. England's performances this year had been underwhelming at times and she seems to have turned the loss of Walsh into an opportunity to try something very different. She switched England to 3 at the back, with Carter and Greenwood flanking Bright, strengthening it in order to cover for Bronze and Daly who just can't resist bombing on at every opportunity. Walsh was replaced by 2 very central midfielders, Zelem and Stanway with James, Hemp and Russo up front

Bizarrely it all worked rather well. Best performance by the Lionesses in a while. Lots of players played in unfamiliar roles, with Kelly and Toone having to make way. It released James and gave her a free role, allowed Bronze and Daly to rampage ahead, seemed to improve the output from both Hemp and Russo and the goals, which have been rarer than hens teeth this year, just flowed. James was terrific. China tried to sit back and defend at first, but that didn't work..... they pushed up a bit either side of the break, which improved them; got a penalty and tried to kick on, but that was snuffed out pretty quickly by James. She scored 3 belting goals, but the second ended up being ruled offside by Bronze in the build up. Wonderful strikes all

After the turgid fare we've been served up this year it felt like a rebirth to me. Okay.... it was China, but this looked as though it had promise and showed that England can adapt to losing influential players (of which they've lost a fair few) and change systems around when they have to.

James was flying today in that free role. Bring out the best in her and it'll bring out the best in England, I reckon

Reece who?

[mikesiva]

Sweden 2-0 Argentina
South Africa 3-2 Italy!!

France 6-3 Panama
Jamaica 0-0 Brazil!!!!

Advancing
Sweden
South Africa
France
Jamaica!!!

[mikesiva]

South Korea 1-1 Germany
Morocco 1-0 Colombia

Advancing
Colombia
Morocco

Germany are out!

[Durhamfootman]

I watched the Germany game this afternoon and they thoroughly deserved to go home. Their only tactic was to try and get the ball onto Popp's head. She scored one, had another disallowed for offside, headed against the bar and headed straight at the keeper. Those 4 chances were pretty much all that the Ericas produced throughout the game. Korea had a stunning opening few minutes where they carved the German defence open twice to go one on one with Frohms, the first on 2 minutes was parried onto the post and the second on 6 mins slotted past her. Korea worked their socks off; the Ericas just weren't really at the races. Morocco got a pen and defended it, finishing on 6 points alongside group winners Colombia. Germany thrashed Morocco 6-0 in the opener, but ended up 2 points adrift of them after the group stage. It says something about the way Germany played, that their most likely route to the last 16 felt like Colombia equalising against Morocco rather than them beating Korea

[mikesiva]

Spain 5-1 Switzerland
Japan 3-1 Norway

Japan look like favourites to me.

[Durhamfootman]

watching Japan playing football is a joyous thing

watching Spain isn't

[Gingerfinch]

Are Japan the team to beat?