WWC Quarter-Finals Part 2
From FIFA’s official site:
In Game One at the end of regulation it was Sweden 3-1 Australia. Sweden makes it through to play Japan in the Semi-Finals.
In Game Two at the end of regulation it was Brazil 1-1 US. At the end of the overtime it was Brazil 2-2 US. The match was decided by penalty shots: Brazil 3-5 US. US makes it through to play France in the Semi-Finals, but this definitely wasn’t the quality of play one expects from these teams. Own goals and players sent off is not great football.
ESPN has the replay on the ‘Net.
4 comments
True, but ultimately a win is a win…
While that’s true, it wasn’t a win you want anyone to remember.
I suppose the alternative to a skills contest to decide tied games would be a baseball contest — keep’em out on the field until one side or the other either scores a goal or runs out of players because they all keeled over from exhaustion 😈 — but that would wreck havoc with the television schedules and we can’t have that, can we?
– Badtux the Tiedy Penguin
Actually, the ‘penalty kick’ process is a great deal like baseball, in that each side is given 5 ‘innings’ to score, and the process continues until one side is ahead at the end.
A lot of it was the officiating, and it wasn’t slanted towards either side, it was just bad. There was a US hand ball and Brazil offside that weren’t called and would have changed the scoring.
Rapinoe’s cross that was headed in by Wambach at the end of extra time was a thing of beauty, the reason people watch football. Brazil’s Marta is one of the best players in the world. With people like that on the pitch, it should have been a game filled with great play.
You have to understand that I like football in a non-partisan fashion. When it is played well, it earns the nickname ‘the beautiful game’.