Double Rout (7/27)

BOY SCOUT EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS, CA -- Real Salt Lake tied the match about 21 seconds after kicking off following San Jose Earthquakes' first goal with a great chip over the GK to go into halftime tied at 1.  But SJ came out scoring four times in the second half (matching Los Angeles Football Club's 4 2nd half goals vs LA Galaxy) in dominating a frustrated RSL team, 5-2.  SJ had two PKs (both converted by Magnus Eriksson who also added an assist) and RSL had two players sent off.  SJ's Wondo scored off the bench for a 3rd straight match.

In the heavyweight marque match, LAFC got its revenge on last year's playoff loss whipping Seattle Sounders FC, 4-1 behind Diego Rossi's two goals (7 for the tourney).  LAFC was fast and had control but when Rossi couldn't be a couple of golden chances away, SEA came back to cut LAFC's lead in half at 2-1 with 15 minutes left.  But LAFC scored twice in 7 minutes as Rossi managed to finally put an easy goal away.  There were no cards in the match.

Concacaf announced a new WC22 qualifying format with 30 teams competing for three spots to join the top 5 teams to form the 8-team Final Round (no longer the Hex anymore, I guess the Oct).  The top five are 11-Mexico, 22-USA, 46-Costa Rica, 48-Jamaica, and 62-Honduras, based on the July 16th FIFA rankings.  The 30 teams in the First Round will be broken into six groups of five with 69-El Salvador, 73-Canada, 80-Curacao, 81-Panama, 86-Haiti, and 105-Trinidad and Tobago pre-seeded for each.  The six group winners will pair off in the Second Round and the 3 winners will advance to the Final Round.  With 8 teams competing for 3.5 spots, it will be harder for USA considering how poorly they do on the road.

In the pool, Coronavirus_Sucks! was the only one to get SJ and also was one of 13 to get LAFC.   2 got none.  She moved to 5th (54 pts) in the standings but Bobby Cee Racer still has a six point lead with 62 pts.  SJ's win eliminated Hereforthecommentary (8th-Tied, 51) from the top 3 and yours truly, Futbol Fabone Eleven (8th-T), from 1st.  13 had SEA going to the Quarters as the SEA-LAFC matchup was not expected so soon eliminating Carseroni (14th, 46) from the top 3, leaving 12 still alive and 6 who can win the pool.  Bobby Cee Racer still has a 63.1% chance to win the pool and slightly lower than yesterday 88.1% chance to finish in the top 3.  BigRedMessy (7th, 52) moved up with a 14.1% chance to win 1st and 40.2% chance to finish in the top 3.  He is the only entry left that still has his/her champion with LAFC.  3 had SEA winning it all including our leader.  With most favorites out, the most any entry could get is just 89 points.  Super League, in last with 43 pts, had a 1 in 1024 chance to finish 3rd and now sits at 1 in 512.

New Concacaf 2022 Qualifying

Interesting.  Concacaf announced the new 2022 World Cup qualifying format.  So instead of qualifying to be in the Hex (top 6 teams), the top 6 teams will automatically be selected based on the FIFA ranking in June 2020.  So there's less stress there for USA and Mexico.  Also, there will be two groups qualifying simultaneously, with the Hex in one and the other 29 (divided into 8 subgroups) in another.  The first group (Hex) will see the top 3 teams qualify for the World Cup.  In the other group, each of the 8 subgroup winners will play in a knockout stage with the winner playing the 4th place team in the Hex.  Then the winner of this will play in the Inter-Confederation playoff, which would either be the 5th place AFC, the 5th place CONMEBOL, or the 1st place OFC team.

So if you are the 7th ranked Concacaf team, you have to win your subgroup (4-6 matches), then win three knockout matches, then win a two-leg playoff against the 4th place Concacaf team, and then win a two-leg playoff against another confederation.  Whew.  So who's currently #7 (June 14 - before Gold Cup so Curacao (#9) and Haiti (#11) could move up)?  Panama, who actually qualified for the 2018 World Cup (while the USA didn't).  Canada is #8.  Both would need to somehow leapfrog Honduras or El Salvador, who are #5 and #6.  So in 11 months, we'll see if these four teams mix up.

Issue 1.0.1 "Le Moment de Briller" (5/27)

Archive

Monday, May 27, 2019

     WILL EQUAL PAY LAWSUIT DISTRACT #1 USWMT FROM 4TH TITLE?
Equal opportunity exists, with the women taking center stage; 2nd HWCI Women's WC Pool deadline is Friday 6/7 Noon PDT

FREMONT, CA (smt) -- On International Women's Day (March 8), the 28 U.S. women's national team (USWMT) players sued the U.S. Soccer Federation (USSF) for gender-based discrimination in an attempt to level the playing field with their USMNT brethren.  Considering their success as 3-time and defending World Cup champions vs the USMNT who failed to qualify for the last World Cup, it's odd the USSF continues to downplay the USWMT and pick this fight rather than at least offering significant merit-based bonuses.  But at least some sponsors are correcting their ways, with LUNA Bar and Adidas now giving equal bonuses to both teams.  At least the U.S. women will play in the WWC as Ballon d'Or winner Ada Hegerberg will sit out the WWC in protest (since '17) over lack of respect for female players in Norway. 

Will this be a distraction to the #1 ranked team in the world?  Will host France (ranked #4) do what their men's team did when they last hosted the WC ('98), win the Cup?  Will USA coach Jill Ellis coach correctly from the start instead of experimenting (remember those 0-0 draws at halftime?) and waiting for the fans to cause the course-correction like in '15 (maybe not, as 273-cap Carli Lloyd is not happy being on the bench)?  Will #7-Japan bounce back from their shellacking in the final in '15?  Will English-speaking countries of #3-England, #5-Canada, and #6-Australia make a splash finally?  Will current Olympic champion #2-Germany win their 3rd WC to equal the U.S.?