Thoughts on the Beginning of the Women’s World Cup

With the first set of group stage matches at the 2015 Women’s World Cup completed, here are some random thoughts on the tournament thus far.

The stadia are not ideal, which means the atmosphere of many of the matches has been lacking. Many of the stadiums being used (e.g., Edmonton, Winnipeg, Vancouver) are Canadian Football League stadiums, which means that there is plenty of room for a proper soccer pitch in them (unlike in some NFL stadiums) because the CFL uses a 110-yard gridiron that is also wider than an American football field. However, this extra room means that there is a lot of space between the pitch and the stands, so the crowd noise just dissipates. This issue is exacerbated by the fact that some of these stadiums are open-ended rather than being bowls. It is even worse in Montreal’s Olympic Stadium, where the stands are shaped to accommodate a baseball diamond and the first row in some instances is about twenty yards from the pitch. The atmosphere caused by an excited crowd is one of the best things about a World Cup, and it is sad that this element has generally been lacking. The atmosphere during the U.S.-Australia match in Winnipeg was quite good because it was basically a home game for the Americans, and at times it was good during the opening match between the hosts and China in Edmonton, but it has otherwise been subpar.

On a related issue, whose bright idea was it to host matches in Moncton, New Brunswick? The stadium is the tiniest in the tournament, and even so today’s France-England match, on paper one of the marquee matchups of this first week, was not a sellout. I still do not understand why Moncton is one of the host cities and Toronto, which has an excellent soccer-specific stadium, is not.

Fox’s match announcers are not nearly as good as ESPN’s were last year during the men’s World Cup. I have been enjoying Fox’s pregame/halftime/postgame shows, but the less said about their play-by-play announcers, the better (Justin Kutcher has been especially bad). It is clear that Fox is invested in having American announcers for an American broadcast, and it is true that American soccer announcing will not improve in the long run unless American announcers get the opportunity to call major events, but ESPN’s strategy of employing seasoned British commentators makes for a better viewing experience, and ultimately a better bottom line for the network, which is what Fox should be interested in.

None of the pre-tournament favorites have been impressive yet. It is true that Germany beat Ivory Coast 10-0, but that scoreline says much more about how the Ivoirians played than it does about the Germans. The other contenders all got the job done, winning their matches, but the tournament looks wide open.

Some of the newcomers have been very impressive. Nigeria look like an extremely dangerous side because of their speed. Holland also look like they will be a tough out, and Switzerland should have gotten a draw against Japan.

The fight for the four third-place qualification spots is already shaping up to be a fierce one. It is quite possible that a weaker third-place team from a weaker group (e.g., Cameroon) might win one of the spots instead one of the stronger teams (e.g., Australia) due to goal difference. This added element in the new 24-team format will bring some excellent excitement to the tournament that will at the very least cancel out the lack of excitement caused by some of the mismatches that result from the expanded field (a team scoring ten goals in a match might sound exciting, but it really is not).

Overall, I am enjoying the tournament thus far, and I think it will continue to get even better as it progresses.

The 1991 Women’s World Cup Final: The Full Match Online

In preparation for the Women’s World Cup that begins this evening, I just watched the 1991 final between the U.S. and Norway, which is available in its entirety here. It was televised on the now-defunct SportsChannel via tape delay, so there are commercials throughout the broadcast, but one never misses any game action. Unsurprisingly for an American soccer broadcast from the 1990s, the announcing is terrible, not least because both announcers continuously refer to the women as “girls.” The play-by-play man also keeps using the word “defensing” instead of “defending,” as in “the U.S. did a good job defensing that corner kick.”

I must say that I enjoyed watching the video for its early-1990s quaintness almost as much as I enjoyed watching it for the game action (the match itself is a typical overly-cautious final, with the U.S.’s winning goal coming off a misplayed back pass to the Norwegian goalkeeper). There are classic commercials for products such as Chia Pets and The Clapper, as well as several commercials each from Sprint and AT&T, as this was the heyday of the long-distance wars. The broadcast must have been recorded from a Chicago station, as there are commercials for a Blackhawks game and a Bulls game, and one for the Northern Illinois University women’s basketball team (go Huskies!).

Although 1991 was not that long ago, the match shows that it was a very different era in women’s soccer. Each half was only 40 minutes long, as apparently FIFA was worried that women couldn’t handle a full 90, and the extra time periods would have been 10 minutes each instead of 15. Each team was only allowed two substitutes (this was also the case for the men’s game at the time), and there was a male referee (from the Soviet Union)! The site of the 1995 tournament had also yet to be decided. Similarly, late in the game the color announcer urges viewers to write to the U.S. Olympic Committee to request that women’s soccer be included in the 1996 summer Olympics. Finally, the official name of the match (if the telecast is to be believed) was the FIFA Women’s World Championship M&M’s Cup, not the FIFA Women’s World Cup, which is how everyone refers to it now (just like people now refer to “Super Bowl I” when it was actually called the NFL-AFL Championship Game at the time).

It makes me happy that someone has taken the time to put the full match online. One sign that soccer is becoming more and more popular in the U.S. is that Americans are beginning to care more about the history of the game, not just what is going on now, and this video is one example.

2015 Women’s World Cup Predictions

The 2015 Women’s World Cup in Canada begins on Saturday, and it is shaping up to be even more exciting than the thrilling 2011 edition in Germany. The field of contenders is larger than ever before, and there are a number of teams just below this level that could plausibly make runs deep into the tournament. Here are my predictions for the first round.

Group A
1. Canada
2. China
3. New Zealand
4. Netherlands

The hosts should have no problem winning this group as long as they don’t lose to China in the opening match of the tournament, and it is quite possible that they could replicate their third place finish from the 2012 Olympics (remember that, unlike on the men’s side, the women’s Olympic matches are full internationals) on the strength of their home field advantage. It will be interesting to see how China does. They were a world power in the 1990s, but have fallen off in recent years. It would not be surprising to see them eliminated in the second round, but it would not be especially surprising to see them make a run into the semifinals, either.

Group B
1. Germany
2. Norway
3. Ivory Coast
4. Thailand

Expect to see some high-scoring matches in this group as the two former champions beat up on the Ivoirians and Thais. I expect the third place team from this group to be eliminated because goal difference plays a major role in determining which third place teams advance (see the comments on Group D for more on the unusual “third place teams advancing” aspect of the tournament).

Group C
1. Japan
2. Ecuador
3. Switzerland
4. Cameroon

This is perhaps the most difficult group to predict (and thus should be one of the more exciting ones), as after the defending champions, Japan, it is wide open. I’m picking Ecuador second because they have the home hemisphere advantage and do not play Japan until the third match when the champions will have already clinched a spot in the second round.

Group D
1. U.S.
2. Sweden
3. Australia
4. Nigeria

This is the so-called “Group of Death” in the tournament, and it should produce some close, exciting matches. However, all of the people who are worried about whether the U.S. will be able to advance need to relax. The thing about a Group of Death is that it is difficult for all of the teams, which seems obvious, but is often forgotten by commentators. So yes, it will be a tough group for the U.S., but it will also be difficult for everyone else, and as the best team in the group, the U.S. should have no problem advancing, and will probably win the group. It also helps that the U.S. is playing on its own continent. The cities the U.S. will play in are close enough to the U.S.-Canada border that the team should enjoy a significant fan support advantage in each match.

The other important factor to remember Group of Death-wise is that for the first time, the tournament involves 24 teams instead of 16, and this means that four of the six third-place teams will advance to the second round (which is also new this year as a result of the enlarged field, rather than having the quarterfinals as the first knockout stage). So the Group of Death is actually much less deathly than Groups of Death usually are. (It is worth noting, though, that the Group of Deathiest Group of Death ever, Group E in the 1994 men’s World Cup, when all four teams earned four points in the group stage and had the same goal difference, and Norway was eliminated on goals scored, was part of a 24-team tournament.)

Group E
1. Brazil
2. South Korea
3. Spain
4. Costa Rica

Brazil should win this group without a problem, but this is another group where the fight for second and third will be fierce. South Korea were very impressive against the U.S. in their final tune-up match this past Saturday—well-organized and unintimidated—and they will be difficult to beat. On paper, Costa Rica are weaker than Spain, but playing in their home confederation they could be a darkhorse team like the men were last year.

Group F
1. France
2. England
3. Mexico
4. Colombia

France are one of the favorites to win the tournament, and should have no problem topping another group where the battle for the other places will be hotly contested. England have been steadily getting better over the years and are my pick to be the biggest surprise of the tournament. France are good enough to blow out the two teams from the Americas, which will mean a first-round exit for the Mexicans, and that New Zealand, Switzerland, Australia, and Spain will be the top four third-place finishers.

While there are certain to be some lopsided scorelines during the first round as a result of the expanded field, overall the women’s game is as competitive as it has ever been, which should produce some classic matches in the knockout rounds. The field in the quarterfinals could possibly be the U.S., France, Germany, Japan, Brazil, Canada, Sweden, and England, which would produce several games worthy of at least a semifinal match, if not a final. Also, the first five teams on that list all have legitimate shots at the title, thus at least one serious contender will miss out on the semifinals (based on the draw it is likely that Japan and France will meet in the quarterfinals). Expect to see at least a few penalty shootouts decide some of these titanic clashes.

I will make my predictions for the knockout stages once the field for the second round has been determined, but I will go on the record now as predicting that the U.S. will win the tournament. Their depth, combined with the home-continent advantage and their desire to avenge their second place finish in 2011, will be too much for the other contenders to handle.

Books Acquired Recently: Sports History Edition

Katz, Jeff. Split Season: 1981: Fernandomania, the Bronx Zoo, and the Strike That Saved Baseball. New York: Dunne, 2015.

1981 was one of the weirdest seasons in Major League history because it was bisected by a players’ strike. Apparently no one has ever written a book on it, though, and I was too young to remember it, so when I heard about Katz’s book I was immediately intrigued.

Michaels, Al, with L. Jon Wertheim. You Can’t Make This Up: Miracles, Memories, and the Perfect Marriage of Sports and Television. New York: Morrow, 2014.

Al Michaels has been one of my favorite sportscasters since I was old enough to be able to tell different announcers apart. I especially remember him announcing the excruciating 1988 NLCS, and also Monday Night Football, but have enjoyed his work on a number of sports throughout the years. He has announced some of the most important sports moments over the last forty years–way more than any other announcer–thus I am excited to read this memoir.

I missed one of the most famous of these moments, the earthquake during the 1989 World Series (you can watch a clip of Michaels’ call of the earthquake here; the earthquake happens at about 4:38 of the clip), and I am still kicking myself for it. I was nine at the time, and my bedtime was a half an hour after the games would begin (I believe they started at 8:00 and I had to go to bed at 8:30), which was incredibly frustrating. Usually I would watch that first half hour, but I would only get to see the entire first inning if I was lucky, and so I remember that night deciding to watch a sitcom during that time instead. This choice caused me to miss history. I remember flipping to ABC to check on the game during a commercial break and having the screen just be black (I was watching on a small black-and-white television in my parents’ room; I think they were entertaining company, which is why I wasn’t watching the color television in the living room), and thinking “that’s weird, they’re having technical difficulties. I guess I made the right choice.” But when I heard the next day (remember those days before the internet when you had to wait until the next morning to get the news from the paper?) what had happened I realized that I was wrong.

Books Acquired Recently: Mennonite Literature Edition

Hedrick, Emily. True Confessions of a God Killer: A Postmodern Pilgrim’s Progress. Telford: DreamSeeker, 2014.

When this book was first released last year I heard about it and thought “Hmm, that’s an interesting title,” but I assumed it was theology (which is primarily what Cascadia, DreamSeeker’s parent company, publishes) rather than fiction, and thus didn’t pursue it any further. However, an ad for it showed up in my Facebook news feed, and it was convincing enough for me to buy the book.

Ruth, John L. Mennonite Identity and Literary Art. Scottdale: Herald, 1978.

This text basically founded Mennonite literary criticism. I first read it back in 2001 when I took a Mennonite Literature course in college. I decided to try to buy it in order to read it again because I have been writing more and more criticism on Mennonite literature. I was happy to be able to find a copy in good condition.

Both books were acquired from amazon.com’s network of independent booksellers.

Clinching Safety

I took the above photograph at the end of Sunderland’s 0-0 draw at Arsenal yesterday afternoon, which ensured that the Black Cats are safe from relegation this season. The caption, “Clinch safety,” is a simple statement within the context of the match, but it also struck me as a profound statement about life. Isn’t that what we all want, to be assured that we are safe, not just physically, but emotionally as well? It’s such a basic, plain graphic, but it was on the screen for at least five minutes, and I think the moment I happened to photograph it, which shows Sunderland manager Dick Advocaat crying with happiness, epitomizes its deeper significance. We watch sports to help us try to escape from the stresses of life (even though they often cause us more stress) because we always know that true safety is never really assured.

Books Acquired Recently

Adler, Renata. Speedboat. 1976. New York: New York Review, 2013.

Fox, Paula. Desperate Characters. 1970. New York: Norton, 1999.

I was recently reading The David Foster Wallace Reader, which includes a few syllabi from Wallace’s creative writing and literature courses. The syllabi are the best written, most thought-provoking ones I have ever encountered, and it is inspiring to see how Wallace took even this most mundane of genres seriously as a writing task. The syllabus for his contemporary American fiction course included several texts that I have not read before, including Adler’s and Fox’s, which I bought right away because if Wallace thinks they are important, they are.

Human, Charlie. Apocalypse Now Now. London: Titan, 2015.

A few weeks ago a colleague and I were discussing how Apocalypse Now constantly gets referenced in pop culture, and she mentioned this South African novel as an example. Apocalypse Now is one of my favorite films, so I decided to buy Human’s book to see what he does with it. It’s fascinating to have an African text dialogue with the film because the film itself is a retelling of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.

These three texts were purchased from amazon.com’s network of independent sellers.

Swartley, André. Leon Martin and the Fantasy Girl. Newton: Workplay, 2014.

Swartley and I were in college together and we recently reconnected at a conference. He sent me a review copy of this novel, the sequel of which will be coming out this fall. Up until recently examples of U.S. Mennonite fiction were few and far between, but happily the field has been flowering as of late, and it is exciting to have Swartley play a role in this resurgence.

Book Acquired Recently: Jill Bialosky’s The Players

Bialosky, Jill. The Players. New York: Knopf, 2015.

I recently read a review of this poetry collection and decided to buy it because it includes a section about baseball. Baseball and poetry are a perfect match for each other because they both invite contemplation. The empty spaces between pitches (which really only seem to be empty) are like the spaces between stanzas: one is being pulled forward by the game’s/poem’s momentum while simultaneously considering what has gone before. Just as a baseball game carries the sport’s history with it in the comparison of statistics between today’s players and those of the past, the ever-constant form of the game (three strikes and you’re out, three outs to an inning, and you play until there is a winner), and as many meditations on the relationship between the sport and America as one chooses to mention, so to does every poem situate itself in the millennia-old tradition of poetry, attempting to make something new out of words worn soft with constant use.

Books Acquired Recently

Coverley, Merlin. The Art of Wandering: The Writer as Walker. Harpenden: Oldcastle, 2012.

Dorsey, Candas Jane. Black Wine. New York: Tor, 1997.

—. Machine Sex and Other Stories. London: Women’s, 1990.

I bought these three books (all from amazon.com’s network of independent sellers) as a result of reading Greg Bechtel’s collection of short stories Boundary Problems. Many of Bechtel’s stories are infused with psychogeographical themes, which is a topic that Coverley has written about at length. As a result of my interest in psychogeography I have thought about reading The Art of Wandering in the past, and decided that this summer would be a good time to do so.

Similarly, I have been wanting to read some of Dorsey’s fiction since I read an article by her on Samuel R. Delany’s work called “Being One’s Own Pornographer” about five years ago. One of Bechtel’s stories has a quotation from this essay as an epigraph, which I took as a kind of sign that it was time for me to explore Dorsey’s work.

Tytell, John. Writing Beat and Other Occasions of Literary Mayhem. Nashville: Vanderbilt UP, 2014.

I was randomly sent an exam copy of this book by the publisher. I am excited to read it soon because I enjoy the Beats and because I am hoping to do lots of writing this summer and the book looks like it offers some helpful meditations on the subject.