Off the Crossbar! (6/20)

Such 3rd place drama.  With both top 2 teams in Groups E and F already qualified, the bottom two teams faced each other to try to qualify with a win.  A4-Nigeria (3 pts, -2 GD) and D3-Argentina (2 pts) were waiting to see if they could sneak in.  First of all, E4-Netherlands beat E1-Canada 2-1 to win Group E and F1-USA comfortably beat F4-Sweden 2-0 to win Group F.  Boring. 

Needing a win, both E2-Cameroon and E3-New Zealand were pushing players forward to try to break a 1-1 tie and in the end, 5 minutes into stoppage time, Ajara Nchout single-handedly worked herself through and her strike went into the right corner for the final play of the match and sent CMR into the Round of 16 and eliminated ARG.  Then E3-Chile needed a 3-goal win to advance (E4-Thailand now needed a 15-goal win margin after CMR won) and were leading 2-0 when VAR awarded them a PK in the 83'.  But Francisca Lara's PK hit the crossbar hard and match ended 2-0 sending NGA into the Round of 16.  Two African teams claimed the last two R16 spots.  In retrospect, SCO blowing a 3-goal lead against ARG cost them a R16 spot and would've sent CMR home.  So the 3rd place teams are 3E-Cameroon (BEF), 3C-Brazil (CDE), 3A-Nigeria (ACD), and 3B-China PR (ABF).


Both NZL and CHI were the last teams to score and both were on on goals.  In fact, 4 of the last 5 matches saw an own goal including USA's Tobin Heath's rocket that slightly deflected off a defender into the upper net.  USA got revenge of their 2016 Olympic loss to SWE but they are just concentrating one match at a time and next up is 2B-Spain.  SWE made 7 changes to their lineup and seemed content with a loss.

On Thursday, Group E: 3 went 2-0 (20 NED, 3 CMR) and 24 went 0-2.  43 got 2 of 3 R16 teams (40 NED, 43 CAN, 4 CMR) while Mauihammy (42nd-Tied, 60) only got 1.  On placement (18 had NED 1st, 17 CAN 2nd, 0 CMR 3rd (0 as BEF, 0 as CDE)).  Overall, 3 got 8 of 11 points while Mauihammy got just 4 pts.  26 have 12 of 13 R16 teams, 2 have 10.  Fotografo il Migliore in 1st (65 pts) while Mauihammy and Soccerhorn in last (52 pts).

Group F: 17 went 2-0 (36 USA, 19 CHI) while 6 went 0-2.  2 got all 3 R16 teams (44 USA, 41 SWE, 2 NGA (Hereforthecommentary (31st-T, 65), From the Pubs! (22nd-T, 67))) while 3 got 1.  On placement (44 had USA 1st, 40 SWE 2nd, 1 NGA 3rd (0 as ACD, as 1 ABF)).  Overall, 2 got 10 of 11 points while Cheers-from-Europe (42nd-T) got 3.

End of Group Stage: 28 got 14 of 16 R16 teams, 5 got 12, 4 got 30 of 36 matches while Soccerhorn got 21.  Fotografo il Migliore and Kds911 are tied for first with 72 points and Soccerhorn is last with 57 pts.

In the next day or so, I hope to have which entries have been eliminated from the the top 4 money spots.