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| Women's World Cup: USA v Sweden – live! | Women's World Cup: USA v Sweden – live! |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| 7.43pm ET00:43 | |
| Anyone out there?! | |
| 7.42pm ET00:42 | |
| Ecuador have been completely mugged off by the ref here! They’re 1-0 down – Ponce with an unfortunate own goal – but that was a clear foul on Quinteros by Kiwic in the penalty area! She really was bundled over – a barge and a trip! Not given. Switzerland dominating, though – almost at half-time. | |
| 7.36pm ET00:36 | |
| Our US women’s soccer expert Caitlin Murray is in the stadium, and the crowd is going bananas for Megan Rapinoe: | |
| #USWNT lineup is being announced here at Winnipeg Stadium. The loudest cheer of the group? Megan Rapinoe. Who doesn’t love a goalscorer? | |
| 7.34pm ET00:34 | |
| Landon Donovan is sending positive vibes: | |
| Good luck!!! https://t.co/F0q0fPCrMb | |
| 7.32pm ET00:32 | |
| Look at this guy’s Sweden vest: imaginative, and also thrifty: | |
| 7.29pm ET00:29 | |
| The American fans are out in force in Manitoba. U-S-A! | |
| 7.26pm ET00:26 | |
| So, USA, Nigeria, Australia and Sweden in Group D here – tough stuff, but which is the toughest group of death? Argentina, England, Sweden and Nigeria in World Cup 2002? France, Italy, Holland and Romania in Euro 2008? Italy, Brazil and Argentina in second-phase Group C in 1982? Coldplay? | |
| Wahayy!! Gags. | |
| Anyway: email or tweet me – let’s have a heated debate! | |
| 7.24pm ET00:24 | |
| Starting lineups are in! | |
| USA: Solo; Klingenberg; Sauerbrunn; Johnston; Krieger; Holiday; Lloyd (c); Brian; Rapinoe; Press, Leroux. | |
| Sweden: Lindahl; Fischer; Dahlkvist; Schelin (c); Jakobsson; Ilestedt; Sjogran; Nilsson; Seger; Samuelsson; Rubensson. | |
| Abby Wambach and Alex Morgan start on the bench. | |
| The lineup sheets are out. #FIFAWWC pic.twitter.com/31LbPAZygb | |
| 7.20pm ET00:20 | |
| By the way, have a look at this elbow from Nigeria’s Ugo Njoku on Sam Kerr. (Not Cecilia Nku – No 15 is Njoku.) Not cool, not nice – and she’ll almost certainly receive punishment retrospectively: | |
| Disgraceful from Cecilia Nku for that dirty elbow on Samantha Kerr #FIFAWWC pic.twitter.com/Zp9UGlYMQi | |
| 7.19pm ET00:19 | |
| Some admin: Australia played Nigeria just now in Group D – and beat them 2-0. That makes things interesting atop the group – all sides are still alive, although it looks bleak for Nigeria, who’ll have to beat USA in their final match to go through, regardless of today’s result in Winnipeg. | |
| And Switzerland are taking on Ecuador in Vancouver. It’s currently 0-0 after 20 minutes, and the Swiss are on top. Let’s hope Ecuador don’t concede a totally gormless goal in the last minute, and lose 2-1, like the men did last year at the World Cup. Doh! | |
| 7.13pm ET00:13 | |
| Anyway, that’s given this Group D fixture in Winnipeg “added spice”, as they say in the parlance (what is this, a recipe book?) , but all trash talk aside, this should be a really entertaining game. I, for, one, am really looking forward to it, and not just because I watched Kazakhstan-Turkey in the Euro 2016 qualifiers earlier and it was zzzzzz. (Turkey are lol! I know they won, but they are absolutely inept: the team of 2002 would be ashamed. Also, are Turkey the biggest underachievers in world football? Discuss!). | |
| The Americans won well against Australia in their opening match after an iffy first half-hour, but Sweden rather messed up against Nigeria, drawing 3-3, and they need a result in this one. A loss, and they’re probably going home. | |
| But they’re a good team, ranked No 5 in the world, even though they were unseeded in this tournament. And in Lotta Schelin, they have a true star – just don’t compare her to Zlatan. “I like that young girls look up to me as Lotta Schelin, not as the female Zlatan,” she sniffs. | |
| For USA? Megan Rapinoe scored two against the Aussies – the Matildas! What a great nickname – and Solo made some top saves in that game. Coach Jill Ellis, formerly Sundhage’s No2, has found the going tougher in recent years, but there’s undoubted quality in this side, and USA want to win this and | |
| shove it up the Canadians’ | |
| accept the trophy graciously in front of their peaceable North American neighbours. | |
| Kick off is 7pm local time, 8pm ET. Let’s do this! | |
| 7.11pm ET00:11 | |
| Hi! Sometimes you just can’t resist, can you? You quit your job, leave your team, dump your partner … and then find time to engage in a good old bout of slagging off against the people you used to love. Pia Sundhage, the Swede who coached America with quite magnificent success, is now in charge of her home nation – but she’s had some rather choice words to say about her former employees this week in an article in the New York Times, published two days ago and designed, in true, cynical, journalistic fashion, to really set the cat amongst the pigeons. The best bits? | |
| Hope Solo? “A piece of work.” | |
| Carli Lloyd? “A challenge to coach.” | |
| The squad generally: “Some of the players would complain about how much time we spent in hotels. I never understood it.” | |
| The Americans, chastened, have listened respectfully and vowed to do their talking on the pitch! I’m paraphrasing: only dummies and tabloid journalists would actually use that daft phrase. But it’s been interesting – you sense Sundhage has some inner sadness, or hurt, even, about not being the coach any more. And she was so good: as the New York Times put it: | |
| “Her results are difficult to dispute: She won gold medals with the United States at the 2008 and 2012 Olympics and led her team to the final of the 2011 World Cup before losing to Japan in a penalty shootout.” | |
| Quite right. What a star coach Sundhage is. | |
| 7.00pm ET00:00 | 7.00pm ET00:00 |
| Tim will be here shortly. In the meantime, here’s Caitlin Murray on why this Group D clash contains added bite: | Tim will be here shortly. In the meantime, here’s Caitlin Murray on why this Group D clash contains added bite: |
| Sundhage expanded on those comments Thursday and her tone was more positive, but her bluntness is still likely to make a seemingly media-trained American side flinch. Sundhage called Solo “a piece of work” but said that it made her good in goal, adding: “She is the best goalkeeper in the world, so why wouldn’t you try to make her happy? At the same time, having team spirit, it’s a little bit of a bumpy road.” | Sundhage expanded on those comments Thursday and her tone was more positive, but her bluntness is still likely to make a seemingly media-trained American side flinch. Sundhage called Solo “a piece of work” but said that it made her good in goal, adding: “She is the best goalkeeper in the world, so why wouldn’t you try to make her happy? At the same time, having team spirit, it’s a little bit of a bumpy road.” |
| Sundhage also said Lloyd was “a player sometimes smarter than I am,” but that also meant Lloyd didn’t follow instructions at times. | Sundhage also said Lloyd was “a player sometimes smarter than I am,” but that also meant Lloyd didn’t follow instructions at times. |
| More from Caitlin here: | More from Caitlin here: |
| Related: USA v Sweden: clash of the Group D heavyweights, with extra bite | Related: USA v Sweden: clash of the Group D heavyweights, with extra bite |