Rapinoe es en fuego, I love it.
I think overall France outplayed us, but not by a huge margin, and it certainly could have been 3-1, plenty of calls like that go the other way. After a super-physical game against Spain and with less rest than France, I thought we played pretty well overall. France is good. This game probably could have been a semi if things break differently in the pools.
I was a little surprised they were just letting France literally knock over our players in the last 5 minutes of gametime and the final 5 minutes (ahem!) of stoppage. But home cookin' gonna home cook.
Anyway, on to England. Another team with one more day of rest than we'll get.
Like most sports, the referees really don't want to take over a close game at the end. There's so much discretion in awarding fouls in soccer, that this is pretty common at the end of a game--especially one with stakes like this one.
France had more possession, but the U.S. had the lead, so while it's nice that Rapinoe, et al., gave France credit, I don't know that I agree that France outplayed the U.S.. Dunn had a good game; Rapinoe had a good game; Morgan had a good game; Naeher had a good game, etc.
I was surprised that VAR wasn't used on the offside call that took the 3rd U.S. goal off the board. It was awfully close/questionable. That was a huge call for France.
I really like women's soccer, but for kicks Saturday morning I watched a men's game from the UEFA Champions League on my DVR. They really are different games. I read an article once written by a woman professional cyclist calling out men who seemed to puff out their chest if they could beat her during a training ride. There was a lot to the piece, but one key takeaway was, "I'm competing against women, not men--and our body types are different, so we perform differently." That's fair about women's soccer, too--and I think the USWNT, as well as their strongest competitors, are doing a good job of really upping the women's game. I think the next two big areas of improvement are goal keeping and individual ball skills (more players like Marta and Tobin Heath needed). And the women's game will always be different than the men's game.
