After Australia and New Zealand, the co-hosts of the Women’s World Cup, kicked off the event, the main focus now shifts to the subsequent video games of group play, and to a few high contenders taking the sector: Canada, Spain and the United States.
Spain and the United States aren’t any strangers to the ultimate rounds of the Women’s World Cup, and so they must stand 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 video games, there might 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 may boycott its opening recreation towards Canada, whose gamers are reportedly nearing a brand new contract with Canada Soccer. But each side arrived on the event saying they have 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 misplaced within the spherical of 16 in 2019. Nigeria has gained the Africa Cup of Nations 11 instances however is dealing with a stiff problem in a gaggle that features the host nation Australia.
Philippines vs. Switzerland
The Philippines, in its first Women’s World Cup, contains a roster with 18 American-born gamers. It will face Switzerland, a group with just one earlier Women’s World Cup look, in 2015. The two international locations have by no means performed one another; neither is anticipated 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 referred to as earlier than the group 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 have been capable of maintain the Spaniards to a 1-1 draw, a efficiency they’ll be trying to repeat.
United States vs. Vietnam
Vietnam, enjoying in it’s first Women’s World Cup match, has odds of profitable the event at simply 50,000 to at least one, however the group gave the extremely rated German group a scare on June 24 by protecting a pleasant shut — the ultimate rating was 2-1.
The United States was criticized after its opening efficiency in 2019, when the group 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 purpose frenzy, and as a group 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 probably 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 subsequent 9 to 12 months spooling out in entrance of her.
The surgical procedure, the painstaking rehab, the grueling weeks within the health club, the anxious first steps on the turf, the gradual journey again to what she had as soon as been. As she thought-about it in 2015, she felt one thing nearer to exasperation than to despair. “I was like, ‘I don’t have time for this,’” she mentioned.
The first time had been totally 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 referred to as “the fear” — the fear that it’d all be over earlier than it had begun.
Over the final 12 months or so, that concern — and the looking out questions it prompts — has coursed via girls’s soccer. The sport has at instances appeared 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 maintain her out of the World Cup, identified that, this season alone, nearly 60 gamers in Europe’s 5 main leagues had torn their A.C.L.s. “It is ridiculous,” she mentioned earlier this 12 months. “Something needs to be done.”
Working out exactly what that may be, although, is extra difficult than anybody would really like.
Source: www.nytimes.com