After Australia and New Zealand, the co-hosts of the Women’s World Cup, kicked off the tournament, the main focus now shifts to the following video games of group play, and to three top contenders taking the sector: Canada, Spain and the United States.
Spain and the United States are not any strangers to the ultimate rounds of the Women’s World Cup, and so they must face up to the stress of getting a goal on their backs. Canada faces a distinct type of stress: their so-far-unrealized expectations on the World Cup stage.
After these games, there shall be a clearer indication of which of those contenders are poised to make a championship run, and which have issues to deal with.
Nigeria vs. Canada
Both groups are battling with their federations over funding and equal pay. There had been some rumblings that Nigeria would possibly boycott its opening recreation in opposition to Canada, whose gamers are reportedly nearing a new contract with Canada Soccer. But either side arrived on the event saying they had been placing pay disputes apart and turning their focus to the pitch.
Canada, the reigning Olympic champions, made the quarterfinals of the World Cup in 2015 however has didn’t advance past that in subsequent makes an attempt. Nigeria has gained the Africa Cup of Nations 11 occasions however will is going through a stiff problem in a bunch that features the host nation Australia.
Philippines vs. Switzerland
The Philippines, in its first Women’s World Cup, encompasses a roster with 18 American-born players. It will face Switzerland, a workforce with just one earlier Women’s World Cup look, in 2015. The two nations have by no means performed one another; neither is predicted to advance far on this event.
Spain vs. Costa Rica
Spain, whose roster accommodates a number of gamers from the powerhouse European membership Barcelona, has misplaced solely as soon as within the final 12 months. Spain is one more program in a battle with its federation: A truce was known as earlier than the workforce set off for the event, however tensions stay.
When Spain and Costa Rica performed within the opening match of the 2015 Women’s World Cup, the Costa Ricans had been in a position to maintain the Spaniards to a 1-1 draw, a efficiency they’ll be trying to repeat.
United States vs. Vietnam
Vietnam, taking part in in it’s first Women’s World Cup match, has odds of successful the event at simply 50,000 to at least one, however the workforce gave the extremely rated German workforce a scare on June 24 by maintaining a pleasant shut — the ultimate rating was 2-1.
The United States was criticized after its opening efficiency in 2019, when the workforce beat Thailand by 13-0. In the lead-up to this Women’s World Cup, none of this 12 months’s gamers would decide to refraining from the same aim frenzy, and as a workforce trying to make historical past with a 3rd straight title, the United State would take a win in any kind.
The third time round, Megan Rapinoe’s response to a doubtlessly career-ending knee damage went no additional than a watch roll. She had torn her anterior cruciate ligament. She may reel off the restoration schedule from the highest of her head. She may see, crystal clear, the following 9 to 12 months spooling out in entrance of her.
The surgical procedure, the painstaking rehab, the grueling weeks within the fitness center, the anxious first steps on the turf, the gradual journey again to what she had as soon as been. As she thought of it in 2015, she felt one thing nearer to exasperation than to despair. “I was like, ‘I don’t have time for this,’” she stated.
The first time had been completely different. She had torn the anterior cruciate ligament in her left knee at age 21, when she was a breakout star in her sophomore 12 months on the University of Portland. At that point, she felt what she known as “the fear” — the concern that it would all be over earlier than it had begun.
Over the final 12 months or so, that worry — and the looking questions it prompts — has coursed by ladies’s soccer. The sport has at occasions gave the impression to be within the grip of an epidemic of A.C.L. accidents, one so widespread that at one level it had sidelined 1 / 4 of the nominees for final 12 months’s Ballon d’Or.
Vivianne Miedema of the Netherlands, whose knee damage will hold her out of the World Cup, identified that, this season alone, virtually 60 gamers in Europe’s 5 main leagues had torn their A.C.L.s. “It is ridiculous,” she stated earlier this 12 months. “Something needs to be done.”
Working out exactly what that is perhaps, although, is extra difficult than anybody would really like.
Content Source: www.nytimes.com
