Yes, the USA lost a game here that they **should have won!**

However, I DO give Japan credit for doing a better job than the USA did of converting their chances!

"Congratulations to Japan, the 2011 Women's World Cup Champions!!"


Chess Fan

Meanwhile strange things are happening at the Copa America. Both top favourites, Brazil and Argentina, are out in the quarterfinals on penalty shootouts - Brazil by missing all four of their penalties, apparently after dominating the game against Paraguay. Maybe some small consolation for the US women that this happens to other teams too.

In the games I've seen Japan playing it looked like they only dominated in one game—and they lost that one againt England (didn's see the start of that game though).

My first thought before the game was that it wouldn't be that bad if Germany would have lost against the world champion, but now I think the US would have been a more deserved winner. The same old law: if you don't convert your chances...

Before the world championship I've never seen women play football live on TV. I've just seen the results where Germany seemed to win every game lately. That must have been another team because I think the way they played they really didn't deserve to reach the semi finals.

All in all the games were better than I've expected. At the beginning there were some horrible referees (not only in the game Germany vs. Nigeria) and the goalkeepers didn't look very convincing, but there were some nice shots, dribblings and other things to watch during the tournament.

I think the main discovery of this tournament is that the gap between the top teams and the rest has narrowed, and there are more serious contenders. Japan did dominate their semi against Sweden, who had beaten the US in a fairly even game; and the US were anything but dominant against France, who had lost to Germany. So any of those teams can beat any other on a good day. Probably Germany or the US would win 6 or 7 games out of 10 against Japan (and I'd rate the chances in a game between Germany and the US as about 50-50), but in such a short tournament anything is possible. I don't think any team has been dominant throughout the tournament, so it's hard to say who'd be the most deserved winner. With some luck, Germany might have been world champions as well.

Overall I think there was pretty good and entertaining football in this tournament. The quality of women's football is still not quite the same as in the men's game (not because women are less talented, but simply because women's football is not yet as professionally organized), but it's improving quickly. This tournament could do a lot to help that process in Europe, where football is sometimes still seen as a men's game (it seems to be slightly different in the US).

More Copa America madness: Chile, another team that might have been considered a co-favourite, went out against Venezuela. Doesn't anybody want to win this thing? Now Uruguay is the only remaining top-4 team in the semis.

There seems to be a small cultural revolution going on in Austrian football. The tactics blogs that have sprung up recently are starting to influence public opinion, and now the national team is getting a new coach, Marcel Koller from Switzerland, who has a reputation of being hard-working, analytical, tactically astute and psychologically knowledgeable - pretty much the opposite of his predecessor. The blogosphere is enthusiastic, the tabloids are grumbling because it's a little-known foreigner instead of one of the popular ex-players who usually get the jobs as coaches and pundits regardless of their (in)competence. Will be interesting how that turns out.

Ha ha, your newspapers are as pathetic as ours! With a lot of our media, it's all about passion, determination and English grit. None of this namby-pamby foreign, tactics nonsense, oh no.

Who knows—maybe he's forming the next Wunderteam. I'm currently reading Jonathan Wilson's Inverting the Pyramid about the history of football tactics (after just having finished Biermann's Der Ball ist rund) and it was interesting to read about the great beginning of Austrian football (with Meisl and Hogan) in an English book even using that expression.

I've started playing football again after some years lately and somehow I can't do without at least a little theoretical background in whatever I'm doing. lol

That's a common disease among chessplayers, I guess. Seriously, "Inverting the Pyramid" is a great book. Incidentally, Wilson also mentions Karl Rappan, the Austrian coach who had some success with the Swiss national team in the 1930s. Maybe the Swiss can return the favour now...

I don't expect Koller to form a new Wunderteam, but it's certainly possible to get more out of these players. Austria has considerably improved its youth system (although much later than Switzerland) and has some decent players now, but the level of coaching is still poor. There are good reasons why no Austrian coach got a job in a major European league in years. Maybe Koller can initiate a change of philosophy similar to Klinsmann and Löw in Germany.

And btw, it will also be interesting how Klinsmann does with the US national team. He's certainly someone who can bring fresh ideas, although I'm not sure about his actual coaching skills as he used to have Löw as his assistant with the German national team.

In case anyone's interested in reading something about Austrian football, the excellent tactics blog Ballverliebt now has occasional articles in English. The latest one is not exactly flattering, but quite insightful: What the dreadful Derby in Vienna says about the Austrian Bundesliga