Issue 1.0.1 "Blitzkrieg!"

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Wednesday, June 10, 2015 (Happy Birthday Wifey!)

     GERMANS ROUT, CAMEROON DOMINATES IN DEBUT
22 entries from 19 people in inaugural Women's WC pool

EL SEGUNDO, CA (smt) -- B1-Germany showed why it is the #1 ranked team scoring 5 goals in each half in a 10-0 rout of the lowest-ranked team (#67) in the tournament, B2-Ivory Coast.  Fellow group-mate B3-Norway pulled off a 4-0 rout of their own.  As one of eight teams to debut in the World Cup, the second-lowest ranked team (#53) C3-Cameroon put up 3 in each half in their 6-0 rout of the third-lowest ranked team (#48) C4-Ecuador.  Three of Cameroon's six goals came off the PK spot as six (in 7 tries) of the 40 goals scored in the tourney thus far have come from the spot.  The two finalists from '11 (C1-Japan, D1-USA) struggled but came away with victories while the host (A1-Canada) needed a stoppage time PK for their win.  CONCACAF went undefeated as in addition to CAN and USA's wins, E4-Costa Rica and F4-Mexico picked up draws versus E3-Spain and F3-Colombia, respectively.  A3-Netherlands and title contenders E1-Brazil and F1-France picked up wins as well while D4-Nigeria came back twice to tie D3-Sweden 3-3.

After the first couple of 1-0 matches, the last 10 matches saw 38 goals (and no nil-nil ties thus far) despite the first six matches ending with one team shutout.  Group D (the Group of Death) is the only group where all teams have scored at least one goal, with 3 of them scoring three.  The eight newcomers to the World Cup went 2-4-2 (head-to-head: CMR won vs ECU and ESP and CRC played to a tie) while the 7 teams who have made all 7 World Cups went 5-0-2 (head-to-head: SWE and NGA played to a tie). 

The Fox Sports GO app and website hasn't been

Welcome!

Unofficially, we have 22 entries in our first-ever HWCI Women's World Cup Pool!  The 22 is one more our first men's HWCI World Cup Pool in 1998.  The tournament has already seen 40 goals in 12 matches with a quarter of those coming from #1 Germany.

In the pool, everyone has 5, 6, or 7 points and you can see who the 7 at the top of the standings are here.  If you want to see how many entries picked which team to win in each match, you can go here. As expected, USA is the heavy favorite with 16 of 22 picking them to win their 3rd title.  Interestingly, and partially due to the weird FIFA format that would have USA and GER meet before the Finals in most cases, only one picked Germany to win it all.  And if you want to find out who you are playing against and maybe see who has the coolest nickname, you can go here.  I hope to update the pool website more often as time permits.  The first full update should go out tomorrow, an off day.

Of course, for the most updates, please follow @HWCI_Pools or watch #hwciWC throughout match days.

The Cup has started, but still time to enter!

No real surprises today with CAN and NED winning 1-0 matches though most of the interesting play was watching the fake bits and sand from the artificial turf pop up all over the place and watching FOX Sports forget to show replays and sometimes forgetting to show the clock in the scoreline.

So we have over the dozen entries I was hoping to get (15 thus far with promises of more) with such short notice, and although it'd be nice to show the women's game is as important as the men's game, we'll barely get 25% of the 71 entries we got last year for the men's World Cup.

But there's still some time left and before you go to church or do stuff with your family, make sure you get your entry in by 10 am PDT though GER should be a lock vs. CIV.

Also, here are my two entries in the pool with USA winning it all in the first one and FRA, the team I picked (the only person to do so) in our first WC pool in 1998, winning the second entry.  

Futbol Fabone 7:  http://www.hwci.com/worldcup/2015/entries/Futbol%20Fabone%207.htm
Sepp 'N Turf:  http://www.hwci.com/worldcup/2015/entries/Sepp%20'N%20Turf.htm