Unsportswomanlike Conduct (6/23)

For the third time 1D-England scored within the first 15 minutes in a very uncomfortable 3-0 win over 3E-Cameroon.  A rare GK mistake as the CMR GK picked up the ball off a backpass resulting in an indirect free kick on the goalkeeper box line with ALL 11 CMR players on the goal line!  Such an odd sight and unfortunately the GK slightly deflected the shot past her line of defense behind her for the first goal.  Interestingly, had ENG decided to do a direct kick at goal and it deflected off a CMR player going in, it would be a goal since it touched two players.  However, had ENG tried the direct kick and went straight in, it would have been an illegal kick.

While CMR had moments of brilliance and pressured ENG's defense to make a lot of mistakes, CMR will be remembered for bringing extreme unsporting actions to the WWC stage including delaying the game twice for 2-3 minutes because they disagreed with VAR (which with all its controversy, it has at least been consistently applied) and "didn't want to play anymore", elbowed one player and spit on a player (only the first was cautioned), and clumsily going in studs high and dangerously stepping on player's ankles in the 76' and 90'+8 (only the latter was carded and it was yellow not red).  Combine that with crying in futbol and a CMR coach out of control and couldn't control his players (yelling at the refs and yelling near the injured ENG player) and you had a very unhappy ENG coach after the match.  Wow.  Props to the patience of the refs as NBA refs would've teed (technical foul) off a half dozen players easily.  So bizarre to watch.

Host 1A-France and 3C-Brazil battled for 120 minutes but it was FRA who came out on top with a 107' goal to win 2-1.  VAR took away a goal for FRA in 23' (for an odd rationale) and confirmed a no goal for BRA in 87'.  VAR did reverse an offsides to keep BRA's game-tying goal in the 63'.  BRA's Christiane (3 shots on goal) suffered an injury and had to be subbed out in the 96'.  FRA has not had a shot on goal in the first half in their last two matches.  In 120 minutes they had just four shots on goal.

ENG and FRA winning means that UEFA is 4-for-4 in the quarterfinals (QF).  Can 2B-Spain (over 1F-USA) and 2F-Sweden (over 2E-Canada) make it 6-for-6 Monday?

I had an error in the possibilities in that it was using the WC18 point system (5/7/9/14) instead of the WWC19 point system (4/6/8/12).  In re-running it, it didn't make a difference in results, only in max points and highest placement (in a few cases).  So everyone eliminated yesterday were still eliminated.

On Sunday, 39 went 2-0 (39 ENG, 44 FRA) while 5 went 1-1.  On placement (38 had ENG as 1D in QF, 43 had FRA as 1A in QF).  Remember, on placement is just to show how you could get the max QF teams as it doesn't matter which bracket the team got there.  But like on Saturday, because AUS fell to 2nd in Group C (instead of 1st), many had both NOR and AUS making the QF but since they played each other, the entry would only get 1 team, not both.

15 have all 4 QF so far while 4 have 2 of 4.  Kds911 remains in first with 88 points while Soccerhorn is last (69).  3 lost BRA as semifinalist and Soccerhorn lost CMR in QF.

33 are still alive and 26 can win the pool, Skoal1 (8th-Tied, 84) has best chance to win pool (18.8%) while Kona Coast Sliders 1 (10th-T, 83) has best chance at money (35.9%), BigRedMessi is 18th-T (82) but is eliminated while All North America is 41st-T (72) and can still win pool, BitchBttrHaveMy$$$ is 6th-T (85) but can't win pool.