Into The Knockouts

So the Women’s World Cup Group Stage and a few things happened in it that I fancied writing about.

The sheer humiliation of the double-defending champions, The United States, limping into the knockouts and the brilliance of England finally kicking their campaign into top gear with a 6-1 drubbing of China to fire themselves through will be the big stories in most of the media.

The Lionesses’ Lauren James inspired victory that saw them waltz into the round of 16 as one of just 3 teams with a 100% record, the other 2 being Japan and Sweden, was a huge improvement in performance on the stuttering wins over Haiti and Denmark. It was also a sign of a team hitting their stride at just the right time.

What I wish to write about today is the 3 major teams, who everyone had as bankers to advance, that missed out on progression into the knockouts.

Lets start in Group B with reigning Olympic Champions Canada, the team that never got out of the starting blocks. It took them until the 53rd minute of their second match, against debutants the Republic of Ireland, for them to score their only goal of the whole tournament from their own boots.

The Irish had already opened the scoring for the match with an own goal in stoppage time at the end of the first half. Fans of the Canucks will have been filled with relief when those goals bulged the net, having seen their team miss a penalty in their opener against Nigeria.

Unfortunately, this was not the herald of the arrival of a Canadian team ready to push on and take the tournament by storm. In their final group game they collapsed at the first sign of aggression from their opponents, an Australian team fighting for their own survival, and ended up being destroyed 4-0.

At least their fans weren’t given the false hope of a swashbuckling opening victory before seeing their team fade into ignominy. Fans of Brazil and beaten Euro 2022 finalists Germany were not so lucky.

Brazil started their tournament by pummelling debutants Panama 4-0 in a exhibition of attacking football that few teams could have lived with. Despite this brilliant beginning they followed it up with a narrow 2-1 loss to the French in their next game, before failing to secure the win they needed against a Jamaican team that have scored once in 3 games.

The disappointing 0-0 draw was enough for the Reggae Girlz to sneak through at As Canarinhas’ expense.

German fans had the worst experience of the lot though. Starting off by obliterating debutants Morocco 6-0 was a tremendous start for one of the tournament favourites but it was all downhill from there.

Next up was the big test against a Colombian team that had started with an excellent 2-0 win over South Korea. Sure, that was a brilliant result for the South Americans but no-one really gave them a hope in hell of overcoming the Germans.

Proving people wrong seems to be the Colombian’s favourite past time though as a 97th minute Vanegas winner saw them pull of the biggest upset of the tournament so far.

No worries for the Germans really though as they just had to get a better result against pointless South Korea than the Moroccans they had trounced could get against their conquerors Colombia. Easy right?

Wrong, very wrong… the Germans could only manage a comeback 1-1 draw, despite creating a hatful of chances, which wasn’t enough to stop the Lionesses of Atlas securing the final knockout place with a 1-0 win over Colombia.

With the Americans in disarray, Germany, Canada and Brazil all out of the tournament and Sweden or the USA falling to the other in the round of 16 the tournament looks far more open than it did just a few short days ago.

The Lionesses are hitting top form at just the right time and, with Nigeria next up, I’m starting to tentatively believe that they could be about to add the World title to the European one they won so brilliantly at Wembley just over a year ago.

Bring on the knockouts and GO ON LIONESSES, bring football home again.