2019-womens-world-cup Page 2 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Relax, It's Okay That Megan Rapinoe Isn't Starting Against England
After scoring two goals in back-to-back games, Megan Rapinoe will start Tuesday’s Women’s World Cup semifinal match-up against England...on the bench. Per the USWNT’s announcement of the lineup, Rapinoe has been benched in favor of Christen Press, one of two changes to the starting XI that faced Fra...
Nation With Zero Women's World Cups Thinks Defending Champs Are Too Arrogant
The United States women’s national team—three World Cups and four Olympic gold medals to their name—will meet England—zero of either—tomorrow afternoon in Lyon to decide who plays in Sunday’s final, and the English seem rather perturbed with the brimming confidence shown by the Americans. ...
Sweden Snaps 24-Year Losing Streak Against Germany With 2-1 Victory
Sweden entered their quarterfinal match up with Germany sick and tired of hearing about this damn losing streak that has plagued their national team for nearly two-and-a-half decades, but it’s hard to ignore something like that given the history between the two sides. Since 1995, Germany had defeate...
The Netherlands Huffed And Puffed Until They Blew Italy’s Defense Down
Just because the Netherlands narrowly survived their round of 16 match against Japan thanks to a late penalty didn’t mean that they were out of the woods yet with the tough obstacles ahead of them in the knockout stage of the Women’s World Cup. In fact, on paper their Saturday match up with Italy se...
Purple-Haired Lesbian Goddess Flattens France Like A Crêpe
Megan Rapinoe has spent this week enduring Swiss-cheese brained criticism from some powerful haters, but today, after the USWNT’s 2-1 victory over France, there can be no slander against her. Rapinoe scored the first two goals of the game—and the only ones for the U.S.—as she piloted her national te...
Megan Rapinoe Cannot Make This Any Clearer
Megan Rapinoe does not want to go to the White House. Megan Rapinoe does not want to go to the White House if the U.S. Women’s National Team wins the World Cup, because Donald Trump is the president. She does not want to visit Donald Trump because of his record and statements on racial issues, gende...
Lucy Bronze's Stunning Goal Completes England's Demolition Of Norway
England had themselves a chill afternoon in the quarterfinals against Norway, scoring twice in the first half and once a little later on to beat the Norwegians 3-0 and advance to the semifinals, where they’ll face the winners of Friday’s game between the USWNT and France. But before they worry about...
The USWNT-France Clash Is The Real World Cup Final
Months of pre-tournament preparation, weeks of controversy and VAR and stress, days of hand-wringing—they’ve all led us here. Since the Women’s World Cup draw back in December, the United States and France, the two best teams in the world, have been on a collision course that unfortunately all but g...
An Unlucky Handball Sends Japan Out Of The World Cup
An exhilarating World Cup round of 16 rematch between the Netherlands and Japan got decided in favor of the Dutch in the 90th minute, thanks to a penalty kick converted by forward Lieke Martens. The PK gave the Dutch a 2-1 win over the same team that kicked them out of the 2015 World Cup, and it put...
The Women's World Cup Has A Refereeing Problem
Despite what our lovely commentariat might believe, we here at Deadspin do not have a quota of anti-VAR posts to hit. If it feels that way during the Women’s World Cup, it’s only because FIFA, through the kind of casually negligent behavior that typifies its treatment of the women’s game, has put it...
Almost Every Penalty Kick Save Ever Is Illegal Now And It's A Mess
The idea, which is not an unreasonable one on its face, is to “get it right.” The less inspiring extension of that is “to avoid something horribly embarrassing.” There are examples that spring to mind when it comes to justifying VAR’s existence—the people in charge are probably thinking of moments ...
Canada Must Wait Four More Years To Discover What It Might Be Like To Win Big In The World Cup
When former Canadian national team player and current TSN pundit Kaylyn Kyle criticized the USWNT for their goal celebrations during the historic 13-0 win over Thailand by saying, “I think, as a Canadian, we would just never ever think about doing something like that,” it raised the question of whet...
What Was Jill Ellis Doing?
Yes, the United States beat Spain 2-1, thanks to two soft-ass penalties converted by Megan Rapinoe, to advance to the Women’s World Cup quarterfinals. And yes, we will get the clash of the titans between the USWNT and France on Friday in Paris. But it should not have been this difficult. The United ...
A Pair Of Megan Rapinoe Penalties Sent A Shaky USWNT To The Quarterfinals
It wasn’t the type of breezy victory that defined the USWNT’s run through the group stage, but in their first knockout game of the 2019 World Cup, the U.S. gutted out a tough, unpretty 2-1 victory against Spain in which two Megan Rapinoe penalties outweighed one disastrous defensive mistake....
Brazil's Golden Generation Won Nothing But Changed Everything
Heading into this tournament, one of the few things that felt certain was that this was to be the last hurrah at a World Cup for Brazil’s feared foursome of Marta, the G.O.A.T. of women’s soccer; Cristiane, her long-serving battering ram of a strike partner; Formiga, the 41-year-old marvel in midfie...
VAR Has One Job, And It's Failing Miserably At It
The most common complaint against VAR—or any form of video review in sports—in one of aesthetics. If referees insist on stopping the game for several minutes to double check every key play, the thinking goes, all the drama and intensity and emotion of the biggest moments will be lost, and the celebr...
France Outlasts Brazil's Tired Old Legs To Advance To The Quarterfinals With A 2-1 Victory
France are moving on to the quarterfinals of the Women’s World Cup after defeating Brazil, 2-1, in extra time. Despite scoring a surprise goal against the run of play late in regulation, Brazil’s tired legs eventually caught up to them and it became only a matter of time before France would strike f...
England Crawl Out Of Dumpster Fire Relatively Unscathed With 3-0 Win Over Cameroon
England lived up to their FIFA ranking as the third-best women’s team in the world for maybe 30 minutes in their match against Cameroon on Sunday. Had it not been for Cameroonian players allowing the poor implementation of VAR that has become a staple of this tournament to get to them, Cameroon woul...
Hell Yeah, England Scored From An Indirect Free Kick
One of the most infrequently-experienced joys in soccer is the short burst of chaos that comes from an indirect free kick, where a team’s free kick opportunity is placed inside their opponent’s penalty box. Thanks to the knockout stage of the Women’s World Cup, we can now reset the “days without” co...
Norway's Perfect Penalty Shootout Deflated Australia Into Submission
A horrendous miss from Australia’s Sam Kerr set the tone for the Matildas’ penalty shootout against Norway, sending the Scandinavian nation into the quarterfinals of the Women’s World Cup with a 4-1 win on penalties....