Back to Familiar Groups (7/9)

MY WIFE'S OFFICE -- While Group A still had 6 teams, Philadelphia Union picked up a crucial three points in a 1-0 win over New York City Football Club.  NYC pressured hard at the end but couldn't come up with the equalizer as PHI's Andre Blake made 7 saves.  Despite a 9 am EDT start, temps still felt like 99 deg F.  Yesterday, with an 8 pm ED start, within minutes, players were drenched in sweat.  Bet they wish they were in Utah with the NWSL.

Now that Group A has 4 teams (as expected, Nashville Soccer Club withdrew as they had 9 confirmed COVID-19 positive tests which resulted in a reshuffling, with Chicago Fire Football Club moving to Group B, giving it 4 teams once again).  So there are 24 teams in six groups, just like last year's Women's World Cup.  And like the WWC, the top 2 in each group and four best 3rd place teams will make the Round of 16.  We'll see if the bubble holds and no more teams withdraw.  CHI will now face SEA (7/14), SJ (7/19), and VAN (7/23) while PHI will now face MIA (7/14) and ORL (7/20) and NYC will now face ORL (7/14) and MIA (7/20).  SEAvVAN moved from 7/20 to 7/19.

While waiting for the evening match, I emailed all the participants and most can keep their Round of 16 bracket intact as it does not matter if you have a team in the right position or not, just that they made the Round of 16.  Thus, it doesn't matter if you placed CHI as 1st A, 2nd A, 3rd A, 4th A, 1st B, 2nd B, or 3rd B, you still get 3 points.  Only four of 13 entries HAD to change as they either had 7 Group A and Group B teams (max is 6) or had NSH in the Round of 16 (just one entry).  But everyone still has a chance to tweak their bracket (in case they care about match-ups and want to tweak who advances to the quarterfinals, etc) until the fourth match, 6 pm PDT Friday.

Also, 9 group matches will not count (games involving DAL, CHI, and NSH) and there is no need to pick the new games (unless you want to brag!).  So there will be 30 points possible in the group stage.

The evening match saw Gustavo Bou's blast into the upper net give the New England Revolution a 1-0 win over Impact de Montreal to start off Group C play.  A third straight scoreless first half and a third straight match with the horrible Adidas logo.  

Only 2 got PHI correct and only 3 got MTL.  No one is a perfect 3-0 with Kona Coast Fauci's, Kona Coast Sliders, and Super League on top with 2 points.  Three are 0-3.