After Japan's previous victories I thought that they looked like real contenders to win the entire World Cup and that notion was solidified with their performance against Spain yesterday. I had said before that I thought they looked extremely composed and solid but was concerned about how they would perform against a team with taller and stronger players. Well, they proved that they can definitely hang with stronger players by absolutely destroying Spain 4-0 and really looked amazing as there was never a point in the game where they lost their composure.
They are one of only 2 teams thus far to win all 3 qualifying games and now I am looking forward to seeing how they will perform in the bracket stages. The only other team to win all 3 games is England and while England had a big victory over China 6-1, China isn't exactly the team to beat in this thing.
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The size differential was evident in this game but it didn't play a factor at all except when considering crosses and corners and Japan didn't have a single corner in the entire game. In fact, when you look at the stats I think that most people would presume that Japan lost the game if they didn't know the score already.
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I don't follow this sport generally speaking, but when one team has possession for nearly 3/4 of the entire time on the field, someone would presume that this team would be the better one. All I can say if you watched the game, Japan used their time with the ball a lot more intelligently and capitalized on perfect passes and quality shots on goal.
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The goals were nicely spread out as well with 3 of the goals coming in the first half and a late one at 82 minutes after Japan had already switched into a defensive game. Japan's ability for breakaway goals is unmatched thus far in the World Cup and honestly, their games have been the most entertaining to watch out of all of the ones I have seen.
Other games that were goal-heavy was Netherlands putting a beatdown on Vietnam 7-0 but I feel as though this is far less of an accomplishment because Vietnam is really out of their element playing at this level and this has been apparent in all of their games thus far. I kind of feel bad for them honestly but it is probably an honor being in the World Cup at all anyway.
The biggest losers yesterday was probably the United States who came into this WC as heavy favorites to win the entire thing. After a goalless draw with Portugal, the USA managed to scrape into the bracket stages of 16. There were some nervous moments during that game because if Portugal had managed to score a goal, the USA women would have been going home early which is not something that anyone thought would happen. They need to make some serious adjustments if they are going to win this thing and right now, I would say that this seems like a long shot and the Vegas lines have already been adjusted to reflect this. They just can't seem to finish the deal despite getting good field positioning regularly and have shots that are wildly off target on a regular basis. With a whopping 16 shots on goal, only 5 of them were on target and all of them were easily saved.
As of now the brackets haven't been determined but I am a lot more excited to see what that ends up looking like than I ever thought I would be. As the only person I know that is even watching these games I have to say that I am considerably more entertained than I thought I would be. As it stands now the teams to watch IMO are Japan, Netherlands, and Sweden. Thus far the favorites England and USA have been rather lackluster and are underperforming. Will they change it up when it truly matters? Well we are going to find out starting on Saturday!