The game was over as a contest but a sleepy Swiss defence still found time to donate a goal to Jennifer Hermoso via a Bonmat\u00ed assist. Switzerland conceded zero goals across 270 group game minutes, 5 here and they\u2019re on the plane home. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Netherlands 2 – 0 South Africa<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019ll be honest, this one hurt. South Africa were always going to be facing an uphill battle against the 2019 runners-up and they did themselves no favours by completely failing to clear an early Dutch corner. Danielle van de Donk got a head to the ball towards the near post and while a defender cleared off the line, she got in tangle with her keeper and the looping ball fell to Jill Roord less than a metre out – a player of her quality needs no invitation. But rather than rolling over from there, Banyana Banyana threw everything at the Dutch. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jermaine Seoposenwe set free her inspirational captain, Thembi Kgatlana, who outpaced the scrambling Netherlands defenders and slammed a high shot that Daphne van Domselaar had to leap to palm over. South Africa were all over the Netherlands in midfield and Kgatlana was freed again, bewitching the defenders to earn herself a metre of space and hammer a shot goalwards that again, van Domselaar pushed aside. Linda Motlhalo created another turnover and again South Africa switched into attack mode faster than a toddler spotting an open baby gate. Kgatlana yet again left the orange-clad defenders eating her dust and again was denied by an imposing van Domselaar. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Two of South Africa\u2019s starters including Seoposenwe were forced off in the first half with injury. Right after half-time, Lineth Beerensteyn took a fairly hopeful shot from outside the box which keeper Kaylin Swart had plenty of time to see coming. Unfortunately she must not have gotten the advice I was given as an u\/8s junior cricketer: get your body behind the ball. Trying to catch it side on, she completely fluffed the grab and the ball flew straight through and into the net. Still South Africa kept pushing and again van Domselaar produced stunning stops to prevent Molthalo and Kgatlana from pulling back goals. Banyana Banyana go home but they have been magnificent this tournament and but for the immense performance of one of the best goalkeepers in the world, they\u2019d still be here. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This match<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Spain have been very very good for three out of the four matches they have played here. Thing is though, if I was, say, on the analysis team of the Netherlands – just to pick a completely random team – I\u2019d be ignoring those three games and instead focusing on the one game where Spain had to play a team with comparable levels of talent and were roundly pantsed 4-0 by Japan. Fundamentally, the Spanish set-up (driven by the controversial coach Jorge Vilda) just doesn\u2019t have a solution for a team who can hustle them out of danger zones and hammer them on the counter. The Netherlands, by contrast, will be lacking influential midfielder van de Donk due to suspension but have a world-class keeper and a solid defensive structure. This game could swing wildly in either direction based on anything – but if I had to pick a winner, I fundamentally do not think the Spanish manager is good enough to win this competition despite the glut of talent at his disposal, and the quarter final stage is as good a place to send them packing as any. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Japan v Sweden<\/h2>\n\n\n\nJapan 3 – 1 Norway<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
I predicted Japan would walk this and they made it slightly tighter than I was comfortable with, but the end result was the same. Hinata Miyazawa has been on fire and it is therefore understandable that Ingrid Engen threw herself at the Japanese striker\u2019s wicked cross like it was a live grenade she was trying to smother – but the resulting deflection completely bamboozled her keeper and Japan were one up. It didn\u2019t last long at all – Caroline Graham Hansen has been the one Norwegian player who has looked at it this tournament and she delivered a perfect cross from the byline onto the head of Guro Reiten, who in turn generated a phenomenal header right into the top corner. Brilliant football all round but that was the only real bright spark from Norway. The rest of the first half was very scrappy and Japan\u2019s second goal shortly after the break was much the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Just as it looked like a dangerous Japanese incursion into the Norwegian box had broken down, Vilde B\u00f8e Risa attempted to pass back to her full back to play out of danger – instead she found Risa Shimizu haring in from the wing and a wicked deflection from her shot took it well past the keeper. Norway brought on their trump card – former Ballon d\u2019Or winner Ada Hegerberg – but they had to push up to try and force a winner and that left them dangerously exposed: it took the Japanese defence one direct pass to find Aoba Fujino free near the centre-circle and with Norwegian players sleeting back around her, she saw directly into the space-time continuum and played a breathtaking through ball that found the one Euclidean path past five separate red-shirted players and into the path of the one pink-clad attacker – Miyazawa – who had turned on her afterburners the moment Fujino collected the ball. A player of her calibre wasn\u2019t going to miss this chance and the composed finish put her alone on top of the goalscoring chart for this tournament. The Nadeshiko are now the only team with a perfect record at the World Cup – Norway are headed home one round later than they really earnt. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sweden 0 (5) – 0 (4) USA<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Before this tournament, the USA had won two World Cups in a row, been to three finals in a row, won fully half of all WWCs ever contested and always finished on the podium. Their level of dominance reflected the funding that was pumped into the women\u2019s game in the US through the NWSL and college sports and, as frustrating as it was to watch them bully other countries year-in, year-out, it has to be said that they deserved it given the atrocious state of funding for women\u2019s football in most of the rest of the world. Now, however, the world is catching up and Sweden have been pushing the USA for a long time. They knocked out the Americans at both the 2016 and 2020(1) Olympics and here, they were expected to go toe-to-toe with the reigning champs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Instead, roundly hammered in the press back home for failing to dominate their group, the USA kicked off at 5am Eastern time – the Netherlands having nicked the US prime time slot reserved for the winner of group E – with their blood well and truly up. Their front four – Trinity Rodman, Sophia Smith, Alex Morgan and Lindsey Horan – put relentless pressure on Sweden and would have opened the scoring several times in the first half without the intervention of Swedish keeper Zecira Musovic. A Rodman shot across the face of goal? Two palms away from danger. A smashing Horan header towards the roof of the net? Full stretch tipped over the bar. Horan again, half-volleying the ball with searing pace towards the corner? An equally fast dive to tip wide. Wherever the Americans hammered the ball, they found Musovic already there, hands fast, arms strong, heart full. It was 85 minutes before Sweden managed a shot on target and that was easily saved by Alyssa Naeher. 89 minutes and it was Morgan popping up on the edge of the six-yard box, fooling her marker, and glancing the header goalwards – surely this was it, the USA winning at the death again, kickstarting a relentless and inevitable march towards glory – but instead it was Musovic leaping cat-like to yet again push away. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Extra-time and the USA were still pouring forwards – Morgan shot, Musovic save, Lynn Williams shot, Musovic save, Smith shot? You guessed it, Musovic save. 11 shots on target from the USA, 11 saves by Musovic. 0-0 and therefore penalties, and not to spoil too much but the wildest penalty shoot-out I think I\u2019ve seen. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It starts tame: Sullivan, Rolfo, Horan, Rubensson and Mewis all score. 3-2 USA and it\u2019s going to the very wire. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nathalie Bjorn is up and she looks nervous. She looks pale. Her run up looks too smooth, too short and her shot is way, way too high and now Megan Rapinoe, two time WWC winner, senior pro, defining figure of the imperial era of the USWNT is stepping up. Score, and the USA are all but through. Rapinoe never misses. She doesn\u2019t feel pressure, she blooms under it, she is driven by it, she revels in it and she\u2019s just blasted her penalty high into the Melbourne night sky. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sweden are in it still somehow and Rebecka Blomqvist, who has played all of 8 minutes of extra time can draw them back level and she puts her shot low and to the right and it\u2019s on target but so is Naeher who has hurled herself across to save and keep the USA ahead. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now it\u2019s Sophia Smith, the new kid on the block and lethal striker who will win it for sure now and she\u2019s sent the keeper the wrong way but she\u2019s sent the ball the wrong way too, lofting it gently over the crossbar like a child\u2019s first tennis serve. What is happening? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sweden must score now to stay alive and Hanna Bennison shows the last four how it\u2019s done, slamming the ball firmly into the roof of the net – unsaveable, unstoppable – and sudden death is here at 3-3. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
What\u2019s this? Naeher is taking it? The USA keeper is apparently the 6th best penalty taker in the team and she\u2019s probably been underrated – one of the cleanest connections of the night and the USA are in front again. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Swedish sixth is their number six Magdalena Eriksson and she puts it to the right and Naeher goes the right way but may as well have not moved, Eriksson beating her comfortably with an elite finish. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s 4-4 and we\u2019ve had six shots a piece and it\u2019s Kelley O’Hara\u2019s turn, who came on with less than a minute to go as a sub specifically to take a penalty. It\u2019s her first touch of the ball but she\u2019s another veteran of this team and she is cool as ice as she takes, fooling Musovic but she\u2019s too cool, she\u2019s too casual and she hits the post square on and it bounces out. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
For the first time in 13 penalties, Sweden have the upper hand. Score this, and they win. Score this and the USA\u2019s phenomenal record is forever broken and it\u2019s all on Lina Hurtig. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
She shoots. Naeher has gone the right way but she\u2019s gone too far the right way. She throws her hands up as she goes under the ball and pushes it up. Up. That\u2019s it surely, she\u2019s saved it except it hasn\u2019t been pushed wide, just straight up. No. Not straight up – the spin and momentum of the ball is carrying it in a slow, teasing arc that doesn\u2019t quite touch the crossbar, that is dropping potentially goalward even as the pro-US crowd start to celebrate. Naeher quite literally bounces off the ground to throw herself desperately up, the ball is still dropping, she has two hands to it and propels it fully out of the goal and to safety. Has she? Wait. What? Hurtig has two arms outstretched, half in denial, half in appeal. She\u2019s not confident. Naeher is wagging her finger furiously. No chance. Clean save. Is it? Stephanie Frappart, the ref, has her finger to her ear, she has not blown her whistle. The crowd is murmuring, no one, no one<\/em>, knows what is happening, what has happened. This isn\u2019t how penalty shootouts are supposed to end, they\u2019re supposed to end in certainty, with finality and this is stuck in a limbo. Hurtig is trailing after Frappart waiting, and then Frappart says something to her, she points back to the centre, puts the whistle back to her lips and Hurtig is the first to know that she did exactly enough and no more and she leaps and runs and the Swedish team see Frappart blow the full time whistle and they pour forwards, piling onto Hurtig in relief and joy and disbelief and the USA are out by a truly outrageous margin. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Holy moly this tournament is SO GOOD. Japan have been phenomenal, they\u2019ve played impeccable control when called for, they\u2019ve deployed diamond tipped counter-attacks when invited and they\u2019ve been one of the few teams who have defended set pieces very well. But they\u2019ll need to. Sweden haven\u2019t been perfect but they\u2019ve been good – I know I made a lot of Musovic\u2019s performance above but partly, it was the USA trying to go off on one, partly none of the chances were really quite as good as the USA almost made them look and partly you are allowed to have a good goalkeeper, she is one of their eleven players. Sweden have proven they can hold firm under pressure and although they may not quite, quite<\/em> have the level of technicality and organisation that Japan do, it\u2019s a pretty small gap and the talent in this team is more than enough to bridge it on a given day. In short, this is going to be yet another game of truly top level tournament football and I am practically salivating over the thought. <\/p>\n\n\n\n To be Australian is to have a very distrustful relationship with international soccer (yes, in this context, soccer is the correct term). The Australian men\u2019s team, the Socceroos, missed every world cup from 1978 to 2002 in a series of increasingly heartbreaking ways. Away goals tiebreaker against Iran, penalties against Uruguay until finally, via penalties against Uruguay again in 2005, we broke through. Only to get done by Italy in heartbreaking fashion in the round of 16 of 2006 and it wasn\u2019t until 2022 that we got out of the group stage again only to run face first into Lionel Messi – who you may have heard about before. The Matildas do not have a much better record in the World Cup specifically – although we\u2019ve qualified for every one since 1995, our record reads something like: out in the groups, out in the groups, out in the groups, out in the first knockout round 2-1 to Sweden, out in the first knockout round 3-2 to Brazil, out in the first knockout round 3-1 to Sweden, out in the second (!) knockout round 1-0 to Japan and out of the first knockout round on penalties to Norway. That\u2019s seven attempts for a single knockout round victory. <\/p>\n\n\n\n So nerves weren\u2019t exactly calm ahead of this allegedly winnable game against a Danish team who were all round decent and boasted a few genuinely world class players, specifically Pernille Harder. And that was reflected on the pitch – this did not appear to be the same Matildas side who had savaged Canada from the first to the last minute of their crunch group game last week. Instead, Denmark made the early running with Harder at the centre of everything. Mackenzie Arnold had to make several comfortable saves while the anxiety inside the Sydney stadium was slowly ratcheting up. Australia seemed stuck in their own half, stuck near the edge of their own box and surely it was only a matter of time until they conceded. But five minutes passed, then another five and still it was deadlocked almost to the half-hour. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Another Danish raid broke down with Caitlin Foord intercepting a pass on the edge of her own box. She\u2019s a left winger. She shouldn\u2019t be that far back but it\u2019s all hands to the barricade right now. Foord only needs one touch to lay it off for Mary Fowler before taking off but they are deep within their own territory and the Danes are everywhere. Fowler takes a touch to escape the lunge of one of them and chases it down to skip past another but while she\u2019s done that to travel about ten metres with the ball, Foord has opened her throttle to full and is already another ten metres forward and still accelerating. Fowler pauses just enough to drag all the attention to her and then, as that perfect half-beat ends, she unleashes a raking ball towards her teammate who has to be approaching escape velocity, who is leaving flaming footprints in her wake, who is nothing more than a blur of yellow and green and pumping legs and by rights the ball should clank off her feet and disappear out into touch or into orbit or just explode yet Foord somehow gets the most perfect of touches, towards the goal, but not too far towards it and well out of reach of the floundering defenders who now know what the last biplane pilot must have felt like when the first jet plane blew past them and the keeper is coming out but she\u2019s too slow, everything is too slow for Foord who has left even the commentator in her wake and as the keeper starts to starfish, the ball is already under her, its already in the net, it was in the net before she even knew it had been shot and Australia are 1-0 up and the last time Stadium Australia was this loud, it was to acclaim another speedster in the green and gold<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Suddenly it\u2019s all different. The deep Australian defence isn\u2019t rocking and desperate, it\u2019s calm and stalwart. The Danish attacks aren\u2019t incisive and threatening, they are frantic and imprecise. Half-time comes and goes with little incident and the loudest noise is reserved for Sam Kerr, finally warming up on the bench. Then, another rapid attack. Fowler releases Kyra Cooney-Cross who pauses, cuts back to Fowler who chips it to Emily Van Egmond who is only feet from goal but facing the wrong way. Two minutes before she\u2019d tried a clever flick when in a similar position and failed to get any power on it. This time, she spots Hayley Raso, the star of the Canada game, in acres of space directly in front of her and rolls it to her. The Danish defence is completely awol and with Raso\u2019s quality, there is only one possible outcome. The Denmark net bulges again and the game is more or less over. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Other than a brief cameo from Kerr – the poster girl for this tournament was yet to play a minute due to a calf injury picked up a day before the first game. Finally, she got a runout and even blazed a chance over the bar late on. Ominous signs for the rest of the field but this is already the Matildas\u2019 equal best result in a World Cup. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Sometimes fairytales get a fairytale ending, sometimes the princess gets cholera and dies. Morocco pulled successive rabbits out of hats to beat both South Korea and Colombia to progress at the expense of Germany but they still have a way to go to properly disrupt the big girls table. France were ruthless here, killing what could have been a banana-skin game inside 25 minutes and rolling into autopilot for the rest. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The first goal came from some delightful one touch passing that zig-zagged the ball down the French right flank for Sakina Karchaoui to cross in for Kadidiatou Diani – the young star having completely escaped some slightly lax Moroccan marking to be free only yards from goal to head in. Then, Wendie Renard chips a ball into midfield at Kenza Dali to outrageously flick on to Diani. Gunning into the box, she sent the ball back to Dali to curve home at the far post. Only seconds after the restart, calamity. Nesryne El Chad royally screwed up – attempting a clearance from her byline, she kicked the ball straight into Diani and the resulting deflection fell for Eug\u00e9nie Le Sommer who did as Le Sommer does, and put the ball immediately in the net. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Morocco stemmed the damage for almost the next hour but finally, French sub Vicki B\u00e8cho ended a long spell of French pressure to stand up a long bomb to the back post where there was only Le Sommer – a tap in header to add emphasis. Morocco go home with genuine pride and achievement and, as a country who is investing heavily in women\u2019s football, confidence that this is truly just the start for them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Yes! Yes!!! This is a gourmet match-up and not just because it\u2019s the inventors of the croissant up against the leaders in brunch innovation. These teams are studded with world-class talent and have both shown the capacity to beat teams who try to match them. Australia have attacked well down their left with the additional threat of Raso cutting in from the right. With Kerr restored up front, they have more than enough attacking edge to get past a France team who can be got at with enough quality. The bigger challenge is stopping France steamrolling you first. You know Wendie Renard will be a target at corners, you know Eugenie Le Sommer will be dropping into all sorts of pockets, you know Kadidiatou Diani will create something out of any nothing you care to name – but so far this tournament, no one has been able to stop them. I can\u2019t call this with my head, so I\u2019ll stick to my heart: Matildas all the way. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Aaargh so close. We were so close to having every major trophy holder in world football kicked out of this competition at the round of 16 stage. With China, Brazil, Canada, the USA and South Africa all having been gently ushered out the door, European Champions England were the last women standing. But this was just Nigeria right? It was supposed to be Canada but now England have an easy path to the semi-final and are clear favourites to win. This might have been the narrative that was forming but no one told Nigeria. Over 120 minutes they were the clear better team. The first half was largely one way traffic and peaked when a loose clearance from the scrambling English defence fell to full-back Ashleigh Plumptre who unleashed an absolute thunderbolt of a shot which beat Mary Earps for pace and nearly split the cross-bar in two. Two inches less height and England would have been deservedly behind. Uchenna Kanu was the next Nigerian player to be denied by the physical structure of the goal rather than any efforts by a player in white, her header also slightly too elevated and bouncing out. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The second half was scrappier and culminated in what threatened to be, and could still become, the defining moment for England. Lauren James had been superb in this World Cup to date, but she was utterly outplayed here by Halimatu Ayinde who was on James like hundreds and thousands on buttered bread. 85 minutes of being hounded, harassed, harangued and hustled by the Nigerian defender and her colleagues proved James\u2019 breaking point. She\u2019d brought the ball down on the wing in a bit of space and attempted once again to break the game out of its stalemate but Michelle Ayozie read her like a book and took the ball right off her toes. Alozie fell over in the process and James, attempting to turn to chase after the ball, tripped over the prone defender. She turned, appealed to the ref for a foul for, I can only assume, being tackled too cleanly and when that was weirdly not forthcoming, stood up and planted one foot firmly on Alozie\u2019s back to push herself away. It was a clear red card for James (even though VAR had to gently encourage the ref to give it) and a wonderful meme template for us all:<\/p>\n\n\n\n England had to buckle down now with only ten players and buckle they did. Nothing much came from extra time and so penalties. England went first and looked like they were sunk when Georgia Stanway sent the first one well wide – but fortunately for England, Alozie and Desire Oparanozie also failed to even hit the target. Bethany England, Alex Greenwood, Rachel Daly and Chloe Kelly all produced penalties of outstanding quality and the Lionesses survived. Nigeria\u2019s Super Falcons go home but they utterly outplayed England here from first to final whistles and should both A) hold their heads up high and B) bloody well get paid properly – Nigerian FA get your house in order and pay these amazing footballers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This was supposed to be Germany v Brazil but how lucky we are that it wasn\u2019t – in particular, how lucky we are to have Colombia. They made the running in this match, pressuring a Jamaican defence yet to concede in this World Cup from the off. Their dead ball routines were particularly dangerous with a series of free kicks and corners repeatedly forcing the phenomenal Jamaican keeper, Becky Spencer, to make desperate interventions, punching the ball away instants before it landed on a Colombian head. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Half-time didn\u2019t change the rhythm at all and the pressure finally told. Ana Guzm\u00e1n found a moment of space fairly deep on the left wing and used it to launch a long, swirling cross towards the far side of the box – weighted so perfectly that it missed a desperate Jamaican defender\u2019s leap by the width of a Swedish winning penalty – to meet Catalina Usme\u2019s run. Her cushioned touch to control the ball was a thing of beauty, converting the significant spin and momentum of the pass into a simple bouncing ball in front of her and, with Spencer rushing out, Usme cooly opened her body and bent it into the far netting. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Jamaica gave them hell for the rest of the match as both sides hit the post and Linda Caicedo threatened to score another worldy but ultimately, Jamaica\u2019s downfall was their inability to bring star forward Bunny Shaw into the game. They go home having scored once and conceded once but like so many of these teams, they will and should be celebrated for overcoming ridiculous odds. Colombia made history reaching the round of 16, they\u2019ve done it again for the quarters, and I\u2019d not put any of my own money on their journey ending here. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We all had this pencilled in as England v Germany – the European Championship final rematch. Instead, it\u2019s the old world vs the new, the professionals against the export market. England are a very good team and they know how to win. They haven\u2019t done it that comfortably this tournament, thrashing China aside, and they\u2019ll be without their superstar James probably for the rest of the cup, but they are a set of talented, bloody minded, ruthless winners managed by the best manager in all international football. They will probably win this, they will probably win their next match and they will probably win the whole World Cup. And yet. Nigeria and Haiti both showed how supposedly smaller teams can trouble the Lionesses. They don\u2019t like to have their key ball players isolated, they don\u2019t like having to break down a structured mid-block and they especially do not like rapid and vertical attacks. And Colombia will do all of these things. They have the talent, the skill and the desire to finish the job that Nigeria started. Is it likely that they will? It\u2019s unlikely. But it was unlikely that Colombia would be here. It was unlikely that they\u2019d beat South Korea and Germany and it was unlikely they would get to their first ever World Cup quarter final. Set your alarms for this one because the result could be seismic.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n There is nothing like knockout football. It doesn\u2019t matter how well you play. It doesn\u2019t matter how much xG you rack up. It doesn\u2019t even matter if you completely deserve it. The equation remains brutal and simple. Win. By any means (whistle to whistle dominance or down to 10 players, missing the first penalty, smashing every other one). By any margin (4 goals or 1 micron). The eight remaining teams have done that and even so, four of them will be going home after this. There is no doubt that the teams left represent the pinnacle of footballing ability, the very best players of the most widely played sport on Earth and yet, 92 of them will be out in disappointment by mid-afternoon Saturday (BST). You have seven (7) more chances to inject this content uncut directly into your veins and very soon, that will be down to three. Do it. Get around it. Get on it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n First-ever-World-Cup-Threepeat-ometer: 1 squashed, abandoned Uncle Sam hat lying on a concourse out of 10<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n But\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n The It\u2019s-coming-home-ometer: 7 young starlet mini-tantrums ending in heartbreak out of 10<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Hej Kompisar, and welcome to the Women\u2019s World Cup 2023 quarter final preview! For those of you less familiar with how we run things round these here parts, we look ahead to the quarter final match-ups by reviewing the previous round of games that brought us here. And hooo baby have we been brought here. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"WB4WB4WP_MODE":"","WB4WP_PAGE_SCRIPTS":"","WB4WP_PAGE_STYLES":"","WB4WP_PAGE_FONTS":"","WB4WP_PAGE_HEADER":"","WB4WP_PAGE_FOOTER":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[8,20,21],"class_list":["post-87","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-football","tag-womens-world-cup","tag-wwc2023"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportsthoughtsoughts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportsthoughtsoughts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportsthoughtsoughts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsthoughtsoughts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsthoughtsoughts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=87"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/sportsthoughtsoughts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":91,"href":"https:\/\/sportsthoughtsoughts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87\/revisions\/91"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportsthoughtsoughts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=87"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsthoughtsoughts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=87"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsthoughtsoughts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=87"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/lh5.googleusercontent.com\/QZhqH5ZLM_OYMSWs709dUeNPwjCA5Iw6brqaDvCPCCHOlVdEL_rSuhmrAgq-NeWIxh79OU-k6u-qklBsRz2uzfmnll6Z-zpg-Qn-rEbJ6zi3J47i6iTD7mZQWJNwvgIMMntvbTvlKy80ZklOBur0wcQ\")
This match<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Australia v France<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Australia 2 – 0 Denmark<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
France 4 – 0 Morocco<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
This match<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
England v Colombia<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
England 0 (4) – 0 (2) Nigeria<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/lh4.googleusercontent.com\/X61ZefinOTabiIrfP3jUGxMgCAHb55Qy15WtR-no2xPIuwul4Gf-stuiuVXyOHESuBszIk9zNtUJn_jCsGJidwP2EbaHAiIMISlvhdtodmZtK7r8NLh61RJPk3x90vHqdxJu5LslbspliA2ynHaqB7Y\")
Colombia 1 – 0 Jamaica<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
This match<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Conclusion<\/h2>\n\n\n\n