Someone watching the women's soccer world cup 2011?

I wondered, if anybody watches the women' soccer world cup 2011?

Our TV stations show every games in whole length for the first time. Games were our national team plays are shown at prime time. So there is a bit more interest this year than in the years before (which maybe because our country hosts it and the women's rights movement is very strong here...), is that the same in other countries?
America (other then the men's team , Brazil, Germany and Sweden are seen as finale candidates (after the first games France is seen there too now).

I do not know if that thread is totally dumb and I do not want to offend people who find women playing soccer is dull, but I was interested in how it is seen in other countries, though.

I know that sports, religion and politics always inherit the possibility of defending someone, so I'd like this thread to be closed by a moderator, if someone is "pissed off" by it.

good sum up, takao. I'd like to add, that you can tell from where the teams are coming from by their style, though. It seems that the "girls" are trained after the same ideas that a specific country uses for the men's team.

"-after aquiring the ball on defense, sometimes the ball is simply kicked forward with a long high ball on many occasions simply giving the ball back to the other team"
- remembering Neuer kicking the ball from the goal to the other end and Klose kicking it directly into the English goal in the last Men's World Cup (I think it was the last world cup 2010. Well, perhaps that's what they are trying *just-joking*

NutsNGum said:

Where are you?

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As I said "hosting this year", I am in germany

Tanglewood said:

I'm actually watching the England - New Zealand game right now on ESPN3.
ESPN is doing a fair amount of coverage.
Lets go USA tomorrow against Columbia!

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This was an interesting one, New Zealand was a big surprise in the first half. I thought England would nail them down.

Jaffa Cake said:

Cox Orange (...)Mind, this isn't necessarily a bad thing as we're spared the media telling us how England are one of the greatest teams in the world and that we'll win the World Cup with consummate ease.

By the way, if you like a spot of soccerballing MacRumors' own Football Thread might be of interest to you.

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Thanks for the tip. I actually thought the English girls would do better but lets see (Germany's women were expected to be better, too, but I am not sure how long they will make it, this time, after winning the last seasons. The success over Canada was a lot of luck and Nigeria was like... rugby

@ obeygiant: "I watched it for about 15 seconds then fell asleep."
Well, I wait till the end of the game, cause you never know what's gonna come. You should have watched Equatorial-Guinea, though not to be compared to other teams in that cup, they did well in their own right.

IJohnHenry said: "The back of the boat." - I didn't get that joke/expression. Is it something anal (gay)? :-D

hehe,
No, it's actually a cultivar/variety of an apple (though I learned Cox Orange is only the german name, propper english naming would be Cox's Orange Pippin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cox's_Orange_Pippin and http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cox_Orange )

Tanglewood said:

Lets go USA tomorrow against Columbia!

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just an add... I think watching Sweden-North Korea could be interesting to (airing before USA-Columbia at 14pm berlin time), because Sweden will play against USA, too.

If ESPN doesn't broadcast that game you might want to have a look at the livestream on eurosport.com (having regionalized content for English speakers, too.). Though I actually do not like the commentator's style at eurosport, that I was watching on TV, when I compared the reprise there, after having watched it on ARD and ZDF (german broadcasting corp.). The commentators on eurosport seem to be not that enthusiastic about it (which I can understand from their point of view).
If you do not mind watching with german commentary you can watch the games that eurosport does not coveron the livestream here http://www.sportschau.de/sp/fifawm2011/news201106/wm_im_ersten.jsp and here http://www.zdf.de/ZDFmediathek/kanaluebersicht/aktuellste/816988#/hauptnavigation/live (they rotate, today its ARD's part, tomorrow ZDf and so on)

Hehe.

USA-Brasil was just WOW!
I'd say that at the end of the day it is right, that USA won, though Brasil did play good, if you overlook some "actions"...

Sadly I will remember that World Cup and the match Brasil-USA as the year, when I pushed my drink over my highly beloved iBook G4 12" (the last ibook model - the one with the Core-Image and OpenGL capability).

It happened during the 2. halftime of Sweden-Australia, but I was cleaning, opening and repearing it during USA-Brasil.
The second pity thing is, that it would have started again after cleaning (though chances were low), if I had not ripped of the connection of the Power-On-Button from the logic board. I will have to open it again and see, if I find someone who can solder (I thought it was the speaker cable I had pulled, but now I got reminded by a nice person that the blue/white cable is the power-button.

I know I am very irrational on this, but I am more than disappointed (I do not have the words in english to tell how I am feeling about this). It was not one that I got just by the way. I bought it new in 2005 and was just "my" iBook. I do not know, whether you understand what I mean by differentiating between "bought myself, new, only me using it, it got older with me" and "used, by someone other, bought some time later". I know it is stupid.
I planned to still use it for my last semester at university, to log in on the campus, when doing researches, having the ability to save things on my own Laptop. I planned to buy a new Intel iMac, when I have finished university next year and the keep the iBook for travelling or when I have to hook it up somewhere in the house, where you do not want to carry your desktop arround.

back to "football"(or soccer as you like )

Canadarules said:

... We r disappointed though about Canada getting knocked out so early as we had such high hopes in them especially here in Canada where the media basically predicted that they might win and kept glorifying them. ...

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It would be interesting to know, if nearly every countries media is predicting their own team to win.
I would have thought Canada will get in the fourth-final, but since France was in the same group, I thought it will be luck, if Canada gets through. After having seen France playing (especially Necib and Thiney), I was sure that france and Germany will come forward.
Since not only german media was "glorifying" the german girls, I was left without a word in my mouth, when they lost against Japan. (france said "not again germany in the group. With germany in, we (france) can only get second, but we will see. USA's Abby Wambach said "I am so glad, we do not have to play against Germany in the 1/4-final." it seems they did not have that much respect for brasil, then for Germany).
It seemed very clear to the audience here, that Germany will at least be second in the finale.

If you are interested, what goes on in the german media/press, now, read on
On Sunday the coach Silvia Neid said, she new that her team has certain shortcomings and that Japan would have stronger technical skills. She told what the german team is good at and why it is not enough and giving the feeling that every team could have won against Germany, if they had build up on these shortcomings.
Today media is exaggurating, saying some people are wanting the coach to retire. In fact she herself had only said she does not know what she will do in the future and she just wants to wait till everything has come down a little bit. A German-Football-League head (Theo Zwanziger) said, there is no reason for her to stop training the national team, he believes in a coach who has won the World cup and the European championship once.

I think since Germany has won the world cup 2003 and 2007, it is ok that another team has the chance, now.

My guess
When Sweden plays against Japan. Japan will do the same thing as they did against germany. Blocking everything in the back (defense), letting no room. I think Sweden is a bit weaker than Japan, which may be the typical "trade off" when playing offense-style against a team that wait fors one fast conter the hole 90mins. Usually they will have their distant shots from Lotta Shelin or Dalmquist, but Japan will not let them do it in their half.

France vs. USA will be a heavy thing for both. But that makes it interesting I think.

Sorry for that long post...

for you http://www.gmx.net/themen/sport/frauenwm/bildergalerien/867vq9i-die-bilder-des-tages#/cid13237686/7