World Cup 2010 Blog: “USA Women Look to Avoid Massive Upset in WC Qualification” plus 2 more |  |
- USA Women Look to Avoid Massive Upset in WC Qualification
- Playing The Gender Game In Equatorial Guinea
- FIFA World Rankings – November 2010
| USA Women Look to Avoid Massive Upset in WC Qualification Posted: 26 Nov 2010 10:23 PM PST The 2010 World Cup is behind us, but for the world of women’s soccer, things are just now heating up, and after Saturday, the last qualification spot for the 2011 FIFA Womens World Cup will be filled. But Saturday is more than just the final match in a long qualification campaign – it could be one of the biggest upsets in the history of women’s football. The USA, the best team in Womens World Cup history, who have finished at least third in all five previous Cups, has to hold off Italy for the final spot, and the victory is in no way assured. The Americans hold a slim 1-0 lead in the home-and-home series, after an injury-time winner in the first leg in Italy. The Italians have to overturn that, in the US, and every sportbook out there has them as significant underdogs, at least 8-to-1. It won’t help to have their #1 striker out for the match. But if they can do it, it would be an historic win, knocking the US out of the competition before it even begins. No one (aside from the Italy side) would be grinning more widely at this result than Germany, who as hosts this year are already favorites, but who would be even more clear favorites if the US was eliminated. Italy may be a recent world champion in the men’s game, but the women’s side has been significantly less successful. In the five official women’s World Cups, no Italy team has ever gotten past the quarterfinals, and their most successful tournaments have been two final appearances in the European Championships (1993 and 1997), both losses. The match is being held on Saturday November 27th at Toyota Park in Chicago. The match is not being televised on any of the major networks, but will be available on ESPN3. For more on upcoming televised soccer, check out our weekend soccer TV schedule. –
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| Playing The Gender Game In Equatorial Guinea Posted: 26 Nov 2010 10:00 AM PST The trusty old story that is ‘Equatorial Guinea women footballers accused of being men’ appears to have sprung a new development, and that is the ‘outing’ of the two women in question. Incredibly, it’s because Nigeria, of all places, has lodged an official complaint. You know, that entirely honest and completely transparent Nigerian FA. (Nigeria also beat them in the final, which makes their stance of righteousness even more mysterious.) The two ladies rumored are Genoveva Anonma and Salimata Simpore, and one is reported to be suspected of gender doping. Or whatever it is. Therefore we can guess the latter is the lady in question. Anonma: Simpore: This is not going to end well, no matter what. Then again she looks no more a man than Fernando Torres looks a girl, so there’s that.
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| FIFA World Rankings – November 2010 Posted: 26 Nov 2010 07:30 AM PST Very little movement to discuss on the FIFA World Rankings front this month, unfortunately. Even everyone’s favorite underdog, Montenegro, has stalled on its meteoric climb to rankings glory, gaining a surprising zero places in the last month. Although Egypt did bump up into the most sacred of position, the top ten, despite completely whiffing on World Cup 2010, taking over for Russia, who also whiffed on World Cup 2010, and sliding in right behind Croatia, who also slapped a big fat doughnut on the world’s grandest tournament. The top ten may or may not be calculated by the sum of their Football Manager rankings. Upon further skimming, absolutely nothing of relevance happened, and the biggest move in the top fifty involved Burkina Faso tumbling down four spots. So we’ll have to wait until next month to gush over Montenegro. Or anything at all.
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