I didn't realize that the Algarve Cup started back in 1994. Alex Morgan is a really exciting player for USA; she's fast, intelligent and seems to have a good shot as well.
(yesterday)
and Morgan strikes again...
and again!
With her two first chances (two more came later) she got the 2:0 that stayed till the end and made
the USA the winner of this Algarve Cup Final.
Breaking Germany's series of 22 won matches (some draws under the last matches), since late 2011.
Sadly, to admit that the two goals resulted from one enormous goalkeeper's fault and another not enormous but still bad fault combinaton of inner defender and goalkeeper (maybe a misunderstanding between them, but... hm). Nonetheless you could see Morgan having a good technique (that wasn't really needed to do at least one of the goals).
There were also several yellows that were not given, which made the referee look a bit bad (more by the US team and I am not biased on that I claim)
Germany played more with (sometimes nice) ideas and sometimes way to complicated, creating a big amount of chances, being not effective. The US did play more directly, but not to say without showing their class. If I recall right there was a fifth chance by Shannon Box, so 2 out of 5, not bad.
What added up to it was, that two German players decided two rather let themselves fall in front of the box and speculating on a foul, where it looked easy to keep standing and scoring regular. Extremely stupid, if you know the referee is stingy with yellows. Well, on the other hand, lucky that they did not get a card for acting.
I wonder, if this tournament was used as a testing field of some teams purposely, since there were a lot of teams that were changing a lot and playing with differing on-the-field starting squad. While the German coach is testing a lot for a while now anyway, I wonder, if she was really thinking it would be wise to take the second goalkeeper against the best team of the world, when you have a big amount of regulars and older field players being injured and your best defense player (who actually is said to be guiding the others, what is otherwise done by the first goalkeeper a lot), is not available, too. This with the first goalkeeper being totally fit and healthy.
On the match for the 3rd place:
Sweden being clearly the better team, playing 2:1 against Norway, until Norway shot the draw in the last 6 seconds of the additional time. Which then lead to the penalties directly.
Now imagine Sweden's (not regular) goalkeeper, having got this one in the box just a wink of an eye ago and now having to have the nerves for penalties.
It ended Norway winning 5:4, though the scenario was, that the swedish keeper kept a ball, which did not give more confidence (giving her reaction, I am not getting psychological here...), Norway being one point behind, but a Swedish player then missed and so it was open again.
Norway had just three real chances. Now you can say, that they are very effective and that this is a virtue, too, but from their playing you would agree that they were clearly the worse team.
While the match itself was not as exciting as the USA vs Germany match, the penalty was then
🙂
Arteta is now an official Van-Bommel Trophy nominee after that game .. how many fouls did he make without getting booked ? a dozen ?
Arsenal at least show that they actually can defend for once and force Bayern to mostly long shots while being brutally effective on the attack (3 chances, 2 goals)
Robben isn't as strong on the left as he used to .. nearly all his dangerous scenes were through the right side ... where Müller actually showed why he is the current number 1 on that position in their squad
It's funny, while missing so many chances - minus those were Ego-Robben decided to do it on his own - Bayern still has their typical luck. But still, I'd say well done Arsenal (or am I to fatous to have thought they could at least get their third goal?).
