Yes Tar I did. Did you see the 88% filled stadium during Japan - Sweden (the semi-final where Germany would have ended up if they beated Japan)? :P 45K people for women's football is not too bad in my opinion.Originally Posted by Tarlam!
For those who are interested in team shapes & tactics, and since there's no (American) football around, I wrote a little piece on what I saw during the game. I watched both semi's (first full games of women's soccer I ever watched) and these are my thoughts:
Yes, the French goalie was bad. Let those 2 teams play with equal GK's and the French will win 95 out of 100 times. The US won by good defensive play & a quality injection by the offensive substitutes.
Having said that, I saw a US team that struggled with the French shape. France played in the 4-2-3-1 that's now in vogue in international football while USA played in a 4-4-2 which on the pitch turned more into a 4-4-1-1 with a flat 4 midfield. France clearly opted for the playmaking strategy while USA went for counter play.
The defensive 4 of the US played great (high quality players with exception maybe of the right fullback IMO) but the biggest problem lied in the midfield play. I don't really understand the coach's philosophy here; Boxx & Lloyd were both playing defensive midfielder roles. This means you need a central attacking midfielder or a second creative striker to fill the big gap in the offensive center midfield. Rodriguez nor Wambach filled that role and as a consequence Boxx & Lloyd were constantly outnumbered by the French ladies. Especially Lloyd seemed to have problems with the pace.
Counter play requires a quick transition from defense to offense and the US failed to do so: there was a lot of (frustrating) loss of posession by the 2 CM's and when a ball was played deep to Rodriguez or Wambach it rarely arrived. In theory, the 2 attackers should keep the ball in the team and wait for midfielders to move up, but they didn't do that either; Rodriguez was invisible and Wambach often tried to play the ball one-touch, mostly resulting in loss of posession.
This caused the US in the scarce moments they had the ball, to immediately lose it again and have their midfield & defense under constant pressure. There was seemingly no chance of a quick counter attack untill they scored the 1-2 (I counted 1 counter, where Rampone crossed the field and the header of Wambach sailed by the empty goal). I seriously thought they were done after the 1-1 and couldn't understand why the coach didn't intervene at all.
The changing point in the game were the substitutions of Lloyd & Rodriguez for Rapinoe & Morgan. This gave the US a lot more offensive firepower; Rapinoe (who I liked) was able to beat her (wo)man on the side and Cheney moved to the center were she showed more attacking spirit than Lloyd, filling the big gap in the centre field. After that the momentum shifted and you all know the rest.
Morgan is a better striker than Rodriguez (who didn't impress me at all). Morgan's smart positioning & diagonal runs were a big threat and gave the US the possibility to actually get in dangerous positions.
I'm too lazy to type a review of Japan, but I'll bet they give the US their share of problems. Those girls played really impressive football, clearly had very good coaching and in my opinion are the favorites for the final. However if the US takes better care of the football once they have it, they could create some situations where they can exploit their physical supremacy. I say keep Lloyd on the bench, put Rapinoe in on the left and Morgan in the attack. Put Sauerbrunn on the right fullback & Buehler back in the centre. Should become an interesting final...
Oh yeah; and this:
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