Own It (6/12)

A3-Norway must be kings of the own goal as they benefited for the second straight match as an opponent scores for NOR, this time hometown A1-France which tied the score at 1 in the 54'.  It was a bizarre play as the cross would've gone harmlessly past the goal but FRA's Renard, who scored 2 goals in the opener, just seemed to tap the ball into her own net with no NOR defender around her.  However, a reckless tackle (really a mis-hit by NOR which made the follow through worse) in the box was looked at by VAR and deemed to be a foul, and FRA converted the penalty and held on to a 2-1 win to take the lead in Group A.

In the other Group A match, another own goal changed the tide of the match as A2-Korea Rep's control of the match was unhinged on a counter and accidentally kicked into their own net to give A4-Nigeria a 1-0 lead in the 29'.  The bizarre part was NGA's player near by put her hand up and appeared to graze the ball as it went past the goalkeeper into the net but VAR said no handball, thus the goal stood.  KOR had chances but it was another counter that did them in and NGA picked up three points in a 2-0 win.



No own goals in the A1-Germany and A3-Spain match, but ESP had several open chances that were not finished and GER got a late first half goal and held on again to their second straight 1-0 win.  The bizarre play was the goal as the GER player somehow got past the slow to react ESP defender on the initial shot/save rebound and slid to put the ball into the back of the net.

Speaking of owning it, the USA women aren't backing down from running up the score against THA but deflected some of the calls for excessive celebration citing they were just celebrating Pugh, Mewis, Lavelle, and Horan or their only crime was an "explosion of joy".  Luckily the fourth estate are poor at asking the right question or doing proper follow up questions so it was easy to deflect, provide a non-answer, or answer the wrong question (i.e., why run up the score).

Six went 3-0 today and this brings back the logjam for first, as six are tied with 13 points.  All North America went 0-3 and is now in last with 9 points.  7 picked NGA, 39 picked FRA, and 40 picked GER correctly.  The 37 entries who had KOR making the Round of 16 are in deep trouble.