How to watch the World Cup Semifinals: USA vs. Germany

Tuesday night at 7 p.m. ET, the United States women’s national soccer team will play against Germany in the semifinals of the World Cup. The game will be televised on Fox but I will not be watching. I’ll be at the game, wearing a U.S. jersey and screaming a lot. I am about as excited and nervous and full of dread as I can remember being the night before a sporting event. To prepare for the event, I’ve written a lot about the game. In this post, I preview the game’s plot and important characters. I also wrote about dreading our opponent and why I won’t be taking part in the “I believe that we will win” chant.

The Stakes

Despite being a semifinal, this game feels like the most important game of the tournament. Some of this is perception. Coaches (and the athletes they drill their messages into) are fond of saying that today’s game is always the most important game and it’s possible that fans have internalized that to some degree. Today’s game is the most important game just like last game was the most important game before it happened. There is some quantifiable truth to the feeling also. Germany is the top ranked team in the world and the United States is second. No matter who the winner of this game faces in the finals, they will not be ranked as highly as their opponent today. It certainly feels like the winner of this game is a lock to win the World Cup. According to Five Thirty Eight’s predictive model for the tournament, that’s more or less true. They predict that the winner of this game will win the tournament 73% of the time. 27% is not zero though and you can be sure that if the United States wins this game, the final on Sunday will suddenly feel like the most important game of the tournament. That’s sports, I guess.

The Plot

Until the quarterfinals, the plot of this game would have been simple. The German team had looked very much like a well-oiled, virtually unbeatable machine, while the United States team had sputtered and stuttered and played just barely well enough to get by. The plot would have been, from the American perspective, a story about the tragic inevitability of a team with so much promise but which was unable to find the tactics or the confidence or the je ne sais quoi to transform them into a championship team. We would have fully expected the United States to lose the first time they played a truly world class opponent like Germany. Thanks to the results of the quarterfinals, people now feel differently about this game. The question is, to what extent and how correct are we?

In their quarterfinal matchup, the German team was convincingly outplayed by the French. The French team attacked from the moment the game started and never took the pressure off throughout the whole 120 minutes the game eventually took. Pressed by the French, the German defense looked mortal and their offense, except for during 15 minutes of the second half, was not able to connect with each other to make the kind of decisive attacks we are used to seeing from them. The French team were more skilled and held up physically to the German side. Only penalty kick prowess/luck (penalty kicks are such a crap-shoot that it’s always hard to tell whether they are skill or luck, although in men’s soccer, some nations, including Germany, have been shown to be better over decades than others) allowed the Germans to beat the French, first one on an unfortunate unintentional hand-ball in the box during regulation time and then five straight makes in the shootout. The way the French dominated the Germans allows us to go back and revise how we think about this German team. Instead of an unstoppable juggernaut, we can round down the Germans to a very fast moving car.

The quarterfinals were a watershed moment in the way people perceive the American team as well. Their game against China was the first time we saw the United States look confident and aggressive. Soccer reporter extraordinaire, Grant Wahl, quoted midfielder Carli Lloyd as saying that the game was the “first time we collectively put a team on its back heels in this World Cup.” This could not be more true. We may never know the reason for the team’s transformation but we do have a couple good working theories.

One theory suggests simply that China was the weakest team the United States had faced so far in this tournament. This isn’t true by ranking, both Colombia and Nigeria are ranked far below China, but rankings don’t always tell the whole story. Proponents of this theory claim that China’s weaknesses (a tendency to ignore the flanks when they attack and a dearth of players with notable pace and physicality) played right into the United States’ strengths, allowing us to look so good. The corollary to the China-is-bad theory is that against Germany, the United States will go right back to looking and playing poorly. Boo! I do not like this theory.

Let’s move on to the second main theory: roster changes. Due to suspensions to Lauren Holiday and Megan Rapinoe, coach Jill Ellis was forced to change her lineup for the quarterfinals. She decided to shuffle things up even more than that and the second theory claims that this was the reason for the team’s strong performance. Holiday and Rapinoe are both playmaking offensive midfielders. They love to have the ball at their feet so they can jumpstart an attack with a perfectly targeted pass. You know who else likes to have the ball at their feet? Carli Lloyd, Tobin Heath, and Christen Press, the other three midfielders who had played during the Group Stage. That’s a lot of players in the midfield, all wanting the ball, and all focused on attacking. When any four of those five players are in the midfield together, the tactical dynamic seems to be out of whack. Everyone wants the ball, everyone wants to attack, but because there’s no obvious defensive anchor, everyone feels a little bit like they shouldn’t go forward. As a result, everyone (at least in the center of the midfield) hangs back a little where they generally get in each other’s way. Through the group stage, the midfield had looked uncomfortable and ineffective. Without Rapinoe and Holiday, Coach Ellis subbed in Morgan Brian and Kelley O’Hara. Although she too prefers playing offensively, Brian is more proficient at playing as a purely defensive or holding central midfielder. O’Hara is less of a playmaker and more of a physical dynamo. She gets up and down the field, putting pressure on her opponents, and looking to score, without actually needing a lion’s share of the ball to be effective. For the fourth midfielder, Ellis had a choice between Heath and Press. The fact that she went with Heath, a player who, although she likes to have the ball at her feet, actually prefers to play on the wing, as opposed to Press, who if she had her druthers would be in the center of the field, makes Ellis’ intent clear. Through her choice of midfielders, Ellis freed up Carli Lloyd to play in her preferred position, as an attacking central midfielder, and effectively unclogged that part of the field to allow her to operate with competition from her teammates. If Ellis had only made those changes, that might have been enough, but she made one other big change. She sat Abby Wambach and replaced her with Amy Rodriguez. Wambach, as you probably know, is the greatest international goalscorer of all time. However, she’s 35 years old now, and as much as her fans, myself included, hate to admit it, she’s slowing down. Despite her decline, Wambach is still an amazingly magnetic player. When she’s on the field, her teammates seem to look to feed her the ball at all costs. This hasn’t worked very much during this tournament. By removing her from the starting lineup, Ellis forced the other team to find other ways to score. By replacing her with Rodriguez, Ellis set the tone for a gameplan that included pressuring (sometimes called “pressing”) the other team whenever they had the ball, even on their own side of the field.

The dilemma of being Jill Ellis

More than any other single person, this game is all about United States coach, Jill Ellis. She’s got some tough decisions to make. After the success of her lineup changes in the quarterfinals, it would seem like a good idea to put a similar lineup with a similar strategy out there for this game. There are two problems with that idea.

The first is simply a question of will and guts. Ellis was forced to make linuep changes last game because two of her star players were suspended. Will she have the guts to sit those players in this game, when both are available to play? Sitting Rapinoe and Holiday was a necessity in the quarterfinals but it would be a controversy in the semifinals. Every time a coach does something unconventional, she draws more focus to her and risks more of her reputation on the outcome of the game. Sitting Abby Wambach for most of the quarterfinals worked out okay but it was a much more comfortable decision against a Chinese team that the United States should have beaten almost regardless of what our starting lineup was. Against Germany, in a game that will decide the fate of this team’s World Cup dreams, dreams that are very much focused on “getting Abby” a World Cup championship before she retires, the choice to sit Wambach will be a much less comfortable decision.

 

Complicating matters is the sneaking suspicion that what worked against the Chinese may not work against the Germans. Not that Ellis has anyone to blame but herself for this, but this United States team doesn’t really have a natural defensive midfielder and Morgan Brian, although she provided a wonderful facsimile of one against China, may not be physical enough to do it against a larger and stronger German team. Playing Amy Rodriguez and Alex Morgan up top and asking them to make the defense uncomfortable handling the ball worked against an inexperienced Chinese defense but may not against a veteran German group.

The soccer world awaits Jill Ellis. What will she do?

Who is going to win?

Germany. Germany is going to win. I feel it in my bones and it feels like I’m an arthritic 75 year-old and there’s the storm of a century coming. Despite now knowing that in reality, Germany doesn’t always beat the United States, they still feels like an insurmountable opponent. After traveling thousands of miles to see the United States men’s ice hockey team in the 2014 Olympics, only to watch them lose 1-0 to Canada, I fear the same thing will happen in this game. I fear that Germany will score an early goal and I, along with tens of thousands of other U.S. fans at the game and millions around the country will never get a chance to really cheer for our team. I know that much of this, maybe even all of it, is illogical. These are two relatively even teams and despite Germany being a slight favorite, there’s really no telling what will happen. It’s just as likely that the United States will score an early goal or that no one will score any goals at all. I know this, I just don’t feel it. Part of the way I root for teams is by internalizing my desire for them to win as a series of foreboding and pessimistic emotions. It’s just how I root — don’t listen to me — go U.S.A!

Why Germany? A U.S. women's soccer fan's lament

Tuesday night at 7 p.m. ET, the United States women’s national soccer team will play against Germany in the semifinals of the World Cup. The game will be televised on Fox but I will not be watching. I’ll be at the game, wearing a U.S. jersey and screaming a lot. I am about as excited and nervous and full of dread as I can remember being the night before a sporting event. To prepare for the event, I’ve written a lot about the game. In this post, I hem and haw about our opponent: Germany. I also previewed the game’s plot and characters and wrote about why I won’t be joining in with the “I believe that we will win” chant.

 Why Germany?

Why does it have to be Germany? Seriously — why? I have an abject fear of Germany as a soccer power. It seems like every time the U.S. team, men’s or women’s, gets in position to do something wonderful at a World Cup, the Germans come through and ruin it for us. Over the past twenty years, I’ve developed as thorough a sports-hatred for Germany as I have for anyone short of the Philadelphia Flyers. I can quickly, without looking too much up, rattle off my litany of complaints:

  • 1990 — the first World Cup the men’s team had qualified for in more than 44 years. My introduction to international soccer as a fan. Sure, the U.S. didn’t play Germany but the German team won. Strike one.
  • 1998 — after the thrilling soccer awakening of hosting the 1994 men’s World Cup and getting to see three games in person (including an amazing quarterfinal upset of Germany by Bulgaria!!) the United States team gets stuck in a group with Germany. Germany slams the U.S. team 2-0 in the first game of the tournament and the U.S. never recovers. Three straight losses and home.
  • 2002 — the men’s team once again escapes the group stage and, after a miraculous 2-0 win over Mexico, advances to the quarterfinals… only to run into Germany. 2-0. Germany moves on, the U.S. goes home again.
  • 2003 — Although I have vague memories of the U.S. women’s team throughout the 1990s, their World Cup victory in 1999 seared them into my (and everyone else’s) consciousness. So, it was no surprise that we all paid more attention to the the next (this) women’s World Cup. I’m in college, so I have nothing better to do than geek out and watch all the games. After an easy run through the Group stage and Quarterfinals, the U.S. team smacks up against Germany in the semifinals. They get smacked, 3-0. The Germans go on to win the tournament, their first.
  • 2014 — the men’s team is stuck in a group with Germany again. Despite that, they could have, should have, would have won the group except for a last second goal by Portugal’s Ronaldo which forced the U.S. to need a win going into the last Group Stage game… against Germany. No dice. The Germans sucked the air out of the ball and won, 1-0, setting the U.S. up for a tough and eventually futile effort against Belgium in the Round of 16.

Looking back on this, it seems like the double-whammy of 2002 and 2003 must have been the moment when my fear and dislike for German soccer teams was cemented once and for all. It probably doesn’t hurt that half of my partner’s family lives in the Netherlands, what with their long, storied, and tragic history of losing to the Germans in World Cups. Neither the United States men’s team or a Dutch team of any gender is playing tomorrow, so their history’s don’t matter outside of my own brain. To confirm or dispel my fears about tomorrow, I did a little research about just the United States women’s team and how well they’ve done against the Germans.

It’s actually a much rosier picture than my tortured mind imagined. In 29 games between the two teams, the United States has won 18, lost four, and tied seven. In World Cups, things are a little more even but still slanted towards the United States. The two teams have played three times in World Cups, in the 1991 semifinals, which the United States won 5-2, in the 1999 quarterfinals, which the United States won 3-2, and in the 2003 semifinals, which Germany won 3-0. Since that loss in 2003, the United States has won six, tied five, and lost zero games against Germany.

It may be irrational, because all sports games are played in the present, but this new way of looking at the past makes me feel better. I’m more confident that, even if we do lose, it won’t be because of some age-old trend of the Germans always beating the U.S. soccer teams and ruining my year.

"I believe that we will win" is inappropriate for the USWNT

Tuesday night at 7 p.m. ET, the United States women’s national soccer team will play against Germany in the semifinals of the World Cup. The game will be televised on Fox but I will not be watching. I’ll be at the game, wearing a U.S. jersey and screaming a lot. I am about as excited and nervous and full of dread as I can remember being the night before a sporting event. To prepare for the event, I’ve written a lot about the game. In this post, I comment on a common chant used by supporters of the U.S. team. I also wrote about dreading our opponent and previewed the game’s plot and important characters.

Impostor syndrome is a “psychological phenomenon in which people are unable to internalize their accomplishments. Despite external evidence of their competence, those with the syndrome remain convinced that they are frauds and do not deserve the success they have achieved.” Although anyone can suffer from impostor syndrome, in our culture, it’s particularly something that women feel. It’s something that thoughtful organizations should be on the watch for so that they don’t inadvertently reinforce it by giving more opportunities to people (predominantly male) untroubled by self-doubt. Impostor syndrome is a pernicious little brain-worm that stops people from achieving everything they can achieve by convincing them they’re not worthy of attempting anything great.

One of the wonderful things about watching international women’s soccer is the sense you get that these women have escaped impostor syndrome. Here are women whose strength and self-confidence is obvious just from looking at them. The fact that they’re able to step onto the field in such a pressure packed environment and perform at a world class level must be evidence that they, unlike so many other women, have taken ownership of their abilities and accomplishments. Women’s soccer is wonderful to watch as sport but it’s also wonderful to watch for its aspirational message to women (and people) everywhere. “You don’t have to cut yourself down. You don’t have to apologize. Look at what is possible when you stop doing those things.”

That’s why it particularly irks me when I hear fans of the U.S. women’s national team chanting, “I believe that we will win.” This cheer comes from fans of the men’s team who popularized it during the 2014 men’s World Cup. The 2014 men’s World Cup captivated the United States like soccer has rarely done before. Bars and town squares were packed with cheering, patriotic fans. People wearing jerseys and scarves nodded to each other on busy city streets and in subways and busses. At the heart of that positive energy was the U.S. men’s national soccer team. The U.S. men’s team is known for its never-say-die attitude, its heroic goaltending, and its tilting at windmills. The U.S. men’s team is a real underdog in world soccer. It’s never won a World Cup and it doesn’t seem likely to anytime in the near future. Although its coach got some flack during the lead up for the 2014 tournament for saying his team had no chance to win, he wasn’t wrong. That’s why the team’s clarion cry, “I believe that we will win,” fit the team so well. Rooting for the United States in men’s soccer is an act of faith despite inevitable disappointment. Men’s soccer super powers would never shout something like this. German fans, Brazilian fans, Italian fans, would be more confident and more straightforward, like: “We’re going to win!” “You have no chance!” “Our team is the best!” “Why even bother!”

The United States women’s soccer team is to women’s soccer what Brazil, Germany, or Italy is to men’s soccer. We’re tied with Germany for the most World Cup championships, with two each. In six World Cups, we’ve never placed outside the top four, and by qualifying for the semifinals in 2015, that record is guaranteed to stretch to seven. The United States team is ranked second in the world by FIFA. It has athleticism and skill that few countries can match. It is, in short, a giant overdog in international women’s soccer. The women’s team deserves a more confident cheer — and a more demanding one as well. How about, “I expect that we will win?”

There is something charming about the “I believe that we will win” chant when applied to the men’s team. In the men’s game, the United States doesn’t have a lot of accomplishments to internalize. We aren’t obviously competent. The fact that fans still “believe” that the team “will win” despite all evidence to the contrary is one of the things that makes them such great fans. However apt it is for the men, the cheer doesn’t fit at all with the women’s team who do have accomplishments and skill that goes far beyond competence. If the genders were reversed, it wouldn’t matter as much, but applying the tentative, self-doubting men’s cheer to the women’s team inadvertently reinforces the idea that women should be apologizing for their strengths. Chanting “I believe that we will win” about the U.S. women’s national team reduces the impact the team can have on women who suffer from impostor syndrome. That’s not something to cheer about.

Sports Forecast for Tuesday, June 30, 2015

Good morning from Montreal! Since my lodging is not conducive to recording podcasts, there won’t be an audio forecast today. We’re going old-school! Just black ink on white paper. Okay, maybe not that old-school. How about black pixels on a white screen?!

Anyway.. you know the forecast today. It’s game day for the United States women’s soccer team. Tonight is the big game! The semifinals of the World Cup start tonight at 7 p.m. ET on Fox with the game between the United States and Germany. I’ll be there in person, wearing U.S. gear and screaming my head off. If you’re not going to be one of the other 66,000 people there, find yourself a TV in a friends apartment or a bar and enjoy the game. Keep your eye on this site today for my extensive preview of the match.

There are some other sporting events on television today. Day two at Wimbledon begins at 7 a.m. ET and continues through mid-day on ESPN. In the evening, there’s some men’s soccer, with a semifinal game in Copa America between Argentina and Paraguay. That game starts at 7:30 p.m. ET and is on BeIN sports. Seriously though, unless you’re from Argentina or Paraguay, watch the World Cup!

Tune into Copa America 2015: Soccer's Biggest Dog Fight

Copa American is a quadrennial international men’s soccer tournament. The winner of each Copa can lay claim to being South America’s best soccer team for the next four years. Here to tell us all about the tournament and to get us prepared for the semifinals tonight and tomorrow and the final match on Saturday, is my old friend and soccer teammate, Salvador Baldino. Salvador is a life-long soccer (or as he calls it, football) fan. He was Princeton High School’s varsity soccer goalie in the early 2000s and has remained an integral part of youth soccer in the Central Jersey area. An Italian-Argentinian-American, Salvador’s passion for the game is as plentiful and diverse as his rooting interests.

Al-Jazeera owns BeIN Sport, the television station with the rights to the this years Copa America. If you don’t pay the extra $10 a month for BeIN, do it. Chile-Mexico, 3-3, Colombia-Brazil 1-0, Argentina- Paraguay 2-2 were some of the brightest and nastiest matches we saw in the first round. Free-flowing, care-free, physical, bloody and in one instance, sexually harassing (WTF Gonzalo Jara), styles of football are coming together right now in Chile. The pressure of the World Cup has been lifted a year ago and now we see teams trying to win or go on their respective vacations away from the beautiful game for a couple weeks.

Neymar, Brazil’s brightest star, is already on vacation, suspended for the remainder of the tournament for a post game skirmish with Colombia’s Carlos Bacca. Neymar’s carelessness went a bit too far as did Arturo Vidal (DUI) and Gonzalo Jara (borderline sexually violating Edison Cavani). South American soccer is a beautiful combination of international football superstars and street thuggery.

The 12 team tournament has culminated into the semi-finals which begin Monday. Chile, hosts and favorites vs Peru, the tournament dark horses. Chile had to overcome the defensive shackles of Uruguay to get there. Unlikely hero/defender Mauricio Isla scored the lone goal of the contest in the 81st minute to move along the host nation. Peru took care of lowly Bolivia in the other quarter final by a score of 3-1. All the goals coming from Guerrero (which means “warrior” in spanish).

The other semi final is not what we all hoped for. Fans across the Americas hoped for that this semifinal would be Brazil vs Argentina as soon as the Copa draw was announced 6 months ago. Instead, thanks to an upset of Brazil by Paraguay, it will be Paraguay who faces Argentina.

Argentina dominated Colombia in their quarter final match but were not able to beat them in regular time. David Ospina, Colombia’s Goalkeeper, stole the show, stopping Messi, Aguero, Tevez and the rest of the Albi-Celeste’s point blank shots. There is no overtime in the Copa America, matches ending in a tie in the Knockout stage go directly to a shootout, unless there is a tie in the final, then there will be OT then followed by the spot kicks.

Brazil continued their “average at best” performance and lost to Paraguay in a shoot-out for the second Copa in a row. Paraguay boasts a stout defense and veteran offensive skill players like Lucars Barrios and Nelson Haido Valdez.

Clearly Chile has the easier road to the final. Argentina will look to avoid any further suspensions on their way to the final. Star players Messi, Aguero, and Mascherano have each already received one yellow. One more and they will miss the final.

The four semi finalists have one interesting thing in common, all have Argentinian coaches, who all bring their own attacking flair and different hairstyles. Gareca, Peru’s coach, wins the hair award, still rocking the long hair at age 57. Ramon Diaz, Paraguays coach, formely of River Plate, has the slicked back mafioso look. Gerardo Martino, of Argentina has the classic history teacher look while Chilean coach Jorge Sampaoli has the bald as a cue ball look.

Peru with nothing to lose will challenge Chile who has all the pressure tonight at 7:30 p.m. ET on BeIN Sports. My prediction: Chile wins that one 2-0.

Argentina are displaying their best defensive football since… shit, who knows? — but their trade-mark offense is sputtering, doing everything but putting the ball in the net. Argentina should beat Paraguay on paper but this is football. Still, I say Argentina wins 1-0. This match happens Tuesday, June 30, 7:30 p.m on BeIN Sports.

The final dog fight will happen on the 4th of July at 4 p.m. ET on BeIN Sports. Unlike the rest of the Knockout round games, if the final is tied after regulation, the two teams will play overtime before heading to a shootout. While all of America celebrates the declaration that began its history’s greatest dog fight, we football fans will be watching another great one in South America.

How to plan for the week of June 29 – July 5, 2015

If you are a sports fan or if you live with a sports fan then your weekly schedule becomes inextricably linked with what sporting events are on at what times during each week. The conflict between missing a sporting event for a poorly committed to social event and missing an appealing social event to watch a game is an important balancing act in any kind of romantic, familial, or business relationship between a sports fan and a non-sports fan. To help facilitate this complicated advanced mathematics, Dear Sports Fan has put together a table showing the most important sporting events of the upcoming week. Print it out, put it on your fridge, and go through it with your scheduling partner.

Download a full-size copy here.

Monday: Wimbledon, the year’s most prestigious, fast moving, and above all extraordinarily British tennis tournament begins today. Because of the time difference, this is mostly a morning affair on the East Coast and a way-too-early-for-sports affair on the West Coast. In the evening, clear your calendar of all South American or otherwise soccer obsessed people because they’ll be watching the first half of the Copa America semifinals between Chile and Peru.

Tuesday: More Wimbledon tennis and the other Copa America men’s soccer semifinal today, but that’s just window dressing to the main event: the U.S. women’s national soccer team playing against Germany in the semifinals of the World Cup. If you’ve already gotten on board the World Cup bandwagon, that’s great, you know how critical this game is going to be. If not, now is the time. Don’t wait to watch the finals! Due to how FIFA set up the bracket, this is likely to be the most important game left in the World Cup. Whoever wins this game, Germany or the United States, is going to be the overwhelming favorite to win the whole thing. Germany, ranked number one in the world by FIFA, is the 60/40 favorite in this game.

Wednesday: The highlight of the day is definitely the other women’s World Cup semifinal. The game between Japan and England is the undercard of the semis — a game between two lesser teams than either Germany or the United States, but it’s not without its appeal. Japan is the most technically beautiful team in the tournament, playing with tight, short passes. Its players seem to know instinctively where each of their teammates is without needing to look. England, on the other hand, has been advancing off its spirit. Of all the teams left, they’re the spunkiest, most lovable bunch.

Thursday: Rest day when it comes to sports this week. Watch some Wimbledon tennis with your coffee (or even better, tea) in the morning, and then spend the rest of the day sports free… unless there’s a baseball game in your area.

Friday: On the face of it, this looks like an ideal date night. It’s almost as devoid of sports as Thursday was. I mean, who really watches a third place game in a soccer tournament? Lots of people! The mildly sad truth about soccer tournaments is that third place games are often more attractive to watch than finals. Without the ultimate prize to play for, teams relax a little and play more wide open, offensive soccer.

Saturday: HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY!! You should be outside all day today, grilling and drinking some type of appropriate drink with your friends or family. Run some extension cords to your patio and pull a TV out there, because there’s too much you’ll miss otherwise. Enjoy the best our once colonial rulers have to offer in the morning with Wimbledon tennis. Cringe watch (as I always seem to find myself doing) Nathan’s Famous hot dog eating contest, live from Brooklyn’s Coney Island at 2 p.m. ET and then switch over to NBC at 3 p.m. ET to see what our Revolutionary War allies, the French, are getting up to. The answer? Cycling! It’s the first day of the Tour de France. At 4 p.m. ET, you’ve got a choice between two soccer games. Hopefully, the U.S. women will NOT be playing in the third place game of the World Cup, which will make it easier to choose. The finals of the Copa America should be a doozy, no matter which team are playing.

Sunday: The women’s World Cup comes to a close with its final match at 7 p.m. ET on Fox. If the United States makes it to this match, expect viewing records to be set. It will truly be a giant game. Other Sunday viewing options include the second stage of the Tour de France, some golf tournament, and a NASCAR race from the legendary Daytona Speedway.

Caveat — This forecast is optimized for the general sports fan, not a particular sports fan. As such, your mileage may vary. For instance, you or the sports fan in your life is a fan of a particular team, then a regular season MLB baseball game or MLS soccer game may be more important on a particular day than anything on the forecast above. Use the calendar as a way to facilitate conversation about scheduling, not as the last word on when there are sports to watch.

How to watch the World Cup quarterfinals: England vs. Canada

Every once in a while, something almost random offers up a result so perfect that it’s hard to believe it just happened that way. The quarterfinal match-ups in the 2015 women’s World Cup are that kind of event. The four games between eight teams will be played over two days. Within those four games exists every possible type of plot: regional, historical, and cultural rivalries. In this post, we’ll preview England vs. Canada, Saturday, June 27, 7:30 p.m. ET on Fox Sports 1.

What’s the plot?

The last of the four quarterfinal matchups, this one puts the cherry on the amazingly coincidental but seemingly purposeful way the remaining countries got paired up. Politically speaking, this is everything you could want out of a matchup. It’s a game between colony and colonizer, two English speaking countries with a half cordial, half competitive relationship. Canada is the host country, so they’re under the most pressure to win this game and guarantee that their country will get to see them play two more times — ideally for them, once in the semifinals and once in the finals, but even if they lose the semis, they would play in the third place game. England is left to play spoiler. The situation was perfectly flipped in the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. (Quick note: due to the vagaries of FIFA and the International Olympic Committee, England competes in the Olympics as part of the larger Great Britain team. In the World Cup, England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, the component parts of Great Britain, all compete separately.) In those Olympics, the pressure was on Great Britain when the two teams met, also in the quarterfinals, and Canada was playing the role of spoiler. Spoil they did. Canada beat Great Britain 2-0 and eliminated them from the tournament.

England will be looking to return the favor to Canada today. They’ll have a good shot at it. Although Canada is undefeated and England has lost a game, England has still looked like the better side. Their one loss was to France in the group stage, which does not look so bad considering France’s heroic performance in their loss to Germany yesterday. Canada, on the other hand, tied New Zealand and the Netherlands and barely edged Switzerland and China. Canada has not scored more than one goal per game during the entire tournament and they’ve got to be feeling nervous today. England is coming off a great come-from-behind victory over Norway and will be riding a wave of good feelings as they approach this game.

Who are the characters?

Christine Sinclair – A legend of women’s soccer, third only to Abby Wambach and Mia Hamm in career goals scored. Like Wambach, she’s hunting for her first World Cup title and (also like Wambach) although she’s not what she once was as a player, she’s still capable of unleashing hell on an opposing defense for short periods of time.

Ashley Lawrence – At just 20 years old, Lawrence seems to be the future of Canadian soccer and if her performance in this World Cup so far is any indication, the future is bright. Lawrence has started each game in a midfield position, where her speed and tenacity have paid off. She scored the goal in Canada’s third Group Stage game that sent them through to the Knockout Round.

John Herdman – Canada’s coach is a 39 year-old from English who will be facing his native country in today’s game. This is a position he’s probably quite comfortable with, having coached the New Zealand women’s national team for five years before accepting his current role with Canada.

Mark Sampson – England’s coach, Mark Sampson, is a man on the move. His rise from head coach of a non-affiliated women’s professional team in England to head coach of the national team can only be described as meteoric. He was not around for the 2012 game between these teams but you can bet he’s acutely aware of it and has been using it to motivate his team to victory today.

Karen Carney – Nicknamed “the Wizard” Carney is key to England’s attack. She also has a back injury. This is not a good combination but so far, so good for Carney and England. She was held out of their first Group stage game and used cautiously ever since. My guess is that the kid gloves come off in this game. If Carney needs to play 90 or even 120 minutes, she’ll find a way.

Fran Kirby – As a former defender, I rarely root for forwards, but Kirby is an exception. Aside from the tear-jerking story of her mother who died of an aneurism while with Kirby at a soccer event when Kirby was 14, Kirby’s simply a joy to watch play. She’s relentlessly fast, pursues the ball like a demon, and is very skilled without ever looking overly fancy.

— Bonus note — one thing I found interesting was that both featured England players have openly talked about their struggles with depression and feeling as though they haven’t wanted to play soccer at times in their careers. This is probably true for more athletes than we’d imagine and it’s refreshing to see it spoken about so matter-of-factly.

Who’s going to win?

England has never made it past this stage of the World Cup. Today will be the day they finally do it. Why? Even in as low-scoring a sport as soccer, you’ve got to score to win (thanks Yogi Berra) and Canada has struggled mightily to score. Three goals in four games just isn’t enough. With six goals against arguably tougher competition, England looks like the better bet to advance. Sorry Canada!

How to watch the World Cup quarterfinals: Japan vs. Australia

Every once in a while, something almost random offers up a result so perfect that it’s hard to believe it just happened that way. The quarterfinal match-ups in the 2015 women’s World Cup are that kind of event. The four games between eight teams will be played over two days. Within those four games exists every possible type of plot: regional, historical, and cultural rivalries. In this post, we’ll preview Japan vs. Australia, Saturday, June 27, 4 p.m. ET on Fox Sports 1.

What’s the plot?

The battle of the Pacific! Two island nations, one big with vast stretches of unoccupied land, one small and packed with people. With these two teams meeting up in the quarterfinals, the Pacific nations are guaranteed one place in the tournament’s final four.

Japan is the distinct overdog in this game. They’re the defending World Champions, having beaten the United States in the World Cup finals four years ago. They were extremely impressive in their last game, knocking off a promising Dutch team with a dazzling show of technical ability. The goal that Mizuho Sakaguchi scored to go up 2-0 in that game was perhaps the best combination of coordinated team play and a deadly finish that this tournament has had so far.

Japan seems to be peaking at the right time, and in the weaker side of the bracket, with only England or Canada looming, if Japan can get through Australia, they’re a safe bet to reach their second straight World Cup finals.

Getting through Australia is no easy task. Australia scored the upset of the tournament (at least in the Knockout Round — Colombia over France in the Group Stage remains more shocking) when they eliminated Brazil with a 1-0 victory. Kyah Simon scored the goal by knocked in a rebound on a play she initiated in midfield with a canny tackle.

Simon, who also scored both goals in a 2011 World Cup game that propelled Australia into the quarterfinals of that tournament, and the whole Australian team seem to have a flair for the dramatic. In a tournament that’s quickly shedding teams, Australia, ranked 10th in the world by FIFA, is the closest thing we have left to an underdog.

Who are the characters?

Kyah Simon – In addition to her dramatic scoring exploits, Simon is a culturally groundbreaking athlete. She became the first woman with indigenous Australian blood to score for Australia’s national team.

Lisa De Vanna – De Vanna is a firecracker of a striker. She’s brash, fiery, and never happier than when she’s running herself and any defenders nearby into the ground. Earlier in her career, she specialized in coming into games as a substitute and making an immediate impact. These days, she’s the captain, starting every match and playing all 90 minutes in every game but one.

Aya Miyami – The current captain of the Japanese team, Aya Miyami, is a wizard in the midfield. She seems to have eyes in the back of her head and is able to pass to open players, seemingly by sonar or telepathy. She’ll take most of the team’s free kicks and other set pieces.

Homare Sawa – Homare Sawa used to be Aya Miyami, although her legend is still so big that it’s probably more accurate to say that Aya Miyami is the new Homare Sawa. Sawa is the same type of player as Miyami which partially explains coach Norio Sasaki’s seemingly strange choice to drop her from the team during the lead up to the World Cup — he wanted to make clear the transition from Sawa to Miyami in the midfield. Sawa was added back to the team right before the tournament and has been successful so far playing beside Miyama or coming in off the bench.

Norio Sasaki – Winning a World Cup as a coach, like Norio Sasaki did in 2011, gives you quite a bit of cachet. Doing it in the aftermath of the triple earthquake/tsunami/nuclear reactor disaster, makes you a celebrity for life. Sasaki is definitely that. Despite comparing himself to Steven Spielberg and his curious Sawa machinations, Sasaki still seems to have his finger on the pulse of his team.

Who’s going to win?

This game is an interesting battle of speed, strength, and spunk against technical skill and coordination. The longer Australia can keep this game scoreless, the better of a chance they’ll have. If they defend long enough and hard enough, maybe a single strike of brilliance from one of their strikers will be enough. More likely though will be Japan dancing around the Australian defense until they find a soft spot to surgically score through. Japan will probably win.

For women's sports to thrive, look beyond the World Cup

So far, the women’s 2015 World Cup has been a great success. Sure, it’s had its sore spots: the cringe-inducing spectacle of people playing soccer on artificial turf that literally melts their cleats and burns their feet; the lackluster performance of the United States team so far; the mostly empty stadiums for some Round of 16 games; but overall, it’s been a great time for soccer and women’s sports in general. The games have been fast, exciting, and as a whole, quite competitive. There have been viewing parties all over the country, from bars and living rooms to town squares and outside city halls. Even President Obama got into the act, showing support for the U.S. team.

One way that you can tell that women’s sports has hit the jackpot of popular support with this World Cup is by noting how quickly and vociferously opponents of equality in sport get shouted down in the media. Early this week, Sports Illustrated’s Andy Benoit provided an example when he tweeted his belief that women’s sports in general are not worth watching. As you might expect, Benoit was roundly condemned for his tweet. He was mocked by former Saturday Night Live actors Amy Poehler and Seth Myers (who themselves were good-naturedly mocked by Fox Sports 1’s Jay Onrait and Dan O’Toole). His contention that women’s sports are not worth watching was debunked by innumerable columnists around the country, my favorite of which was Will Leitch in Sports on Earth who argued that anyone who thinks women’s sports are boring, are in fact, boring themselves:

People like Benoit toss out these justifications for not watching women’s sports out of some sort of faux sports purity, like he’s really just out to watch the pinnacle of athletic achievement every night, like anything less than the “best” and the “fastest” and the “strongest” is somehow a waste of one’s time. But this isn’t why we watch sports at all; we watch because every game we watch, we have a chance to see something we’ve never seen before. Dismissing that out of hand isn’t a way of demanding the highest quality performance every game (as if that’s something that could be done anyway); it’s a way of confirming your preexisting biases. It also devalues the actual athleticism on display, and the amount of work it required of everyone to get there.

Although the reaction against Benoit’s comment suggests that he was voicing a fringe, minority opinion, he was not. His attitude towards women’s sports is quite mainstream. Benoit simply made the mistake of speaking out against women’s sports during the World Cup, one of women’s sports two or three most popular events at a time when it’s never been more popular. If you think anything he said was new, you should watch this bitingly ironic video the Norwegian national team made before the World Cup began:

Negative attitudes like the ones the Norwegian team mocked in their video are all too common in the sports world and are relatively safe to voice during the 45 months out of every 48 when a World Cup or Olympics is not going on. This is bad for elite female athletes, it’s bad for people who love watching sports, it’s bad for girls who aspire to be athletes and their parents. I actually can’t think of anyone it is good for. It’s bad for everyone. Unfortunately, as popular as events like the World Cup and Olympics are, they can’t solve the problem because they only come around once every four years. To solve the gender inequalities in sports, a more consistent, permanent force is needed.

Tanya Wheeless, a former executive of the professional basketball teams, the Phoenix Mercury and Suns, wrote recently about the challenge of sustaining interest in women’s sports beyond the World Cup in Time magazine. She suggests that the critical variable in equalizing the opportunities and rewards provided by sports to women is investment:

What if the likes of Nike, Adidas, Coke, and Gatorade spent as much promoting female athletes as they did men? What if women’s leagues had the same marketing budget as men’s leagues? What if the National Women’s Soccer League got as much airtime in the U.S. as the English Premier League?

Naysayers will say all of that would happen if the interest were there. I say, increase promotion and the interest will follow. It’s the difference between having a market and creating one.

Wheeless could not be more right. The future of women’s sports must be bolstered by strong professional leagues. Professional leagues provide opportunities for athletes to get the training and experience they need to become world class. Without strong professional leagues, athletes are left making gut-wrenching decisions, like that of Noora Raty, perhaps the best women’s hockey goalie in the world, who retired at 24 for financial reasons, or Monica Quinteros, the 26 year-old Ecuadorian soccer player who left her job as a gym teacher to play in this year’s World Cup. You think they might have stuck with their sports if they could have made a living doing so? Yeah, so do I.

We don’t need to leave it to “Nike, Adidas, Coke, and Gatorade.” We can do something about this ourselves. We can contribute to equality and the success of women’s sports by becoming a fan of an existing women’s professional team. That’s exactly what I aim to do with the local professional women’s soccer team, the Boston Breakers. I’ve been to one game so far this year and it was a lot of fun. Held in a Harvard University complex convenient to most of the greater Boston area, Breakers games provide high-quality soccer in a thoroughly enjoyable atmosphere. I’m going again this Sunday when the Breakers take on the Western New York Flash at 5 p.m. Tickets are available and affordable. Join me!

There’s really no excuse to continue watching only male sports. There are successful women’s basketball and soccer leagues: the WNBA and NWSL, and later this year, a brand new professional women’s ice hockey league, the NWHL will begin. The WNBA is carried on television by the ESPN family of channels and you can buy streaming access to all the games for only $15. The NWSL goes a step further and puts all of its games on Youtube for free! If you’re reading this post now, you can watch those games. So join me, over the next year and more, in supporting women’s sports by putting our eyes and our wallets were our mouths are!

How to watch the World Cup quarterfinals: USA vs. China

Every once in a while, something almost random offers up a result so perfect that it’s hard to believe it just happened that way. The quarterfinal match-ups in the 2015 women’s World Cup are that kind of event. The four games between eight teams will be played over two days. Within those four games exists every possible type of plot: regional, historical, and cultural rivalries. In this post, we’ll preview China vs. the United States, Friday, June 26, 7:30 p.m. ET on Fox.

What’s the plot?

Geopolitically, this is big. Although the conflict between China and the United States has not reached Cold War levels, it’s not hard to see it being characterized in future history classes as a similar period, when trade and investment, research and development, and even sport were used as a replacements for war.

From a soccer perspective, the United States and China should not really be on the same level. The United States is ranked second by FIFA and China, 16th. That could be somewhat deceptive though. The Chinese team has been in a slump over the past decade or so and is only beginning to get good again now. Since rankings are invariably based on an accumulation of past results, it’s possible that the Chinese team today is better than its ranking would suggest. If they are, the U.S. team could be in a spot of trouble. They go into this game weakened by the loss of two of their key midfielders, Megan Rapinoe and Lauren Holiday to suspension because of accumulated yellow cards. Those two players represent a lot of the creativity and playmaking ability on the roster. The U.S. must find a way to overcome this.

Regardless of ranking, this game has important and subtly foreboding historical echoes for the United States team. Every player on the team but one (Christie Rampone, who played on the team) remembers watching the U.S. women’s national team beat China in 1999 to win the World Cup. They’ve spent their entire careers dreaming of a similar moment and facing questions about why they haven’t been able to create it. Beating China in this World Cup would be a cleansing experience. Losing to them, an unmitigated disaster.

Who are the characters?

Christen Press and Morgan Brian – As the two players most likely to replace Rapinoe and Holiday in the starting lineup, the spotlight will be firmly on Press and Brian. Press has been in and out of the lineup during this tournament as a striker and a midfielder. Brian has been one of the first midfielders off the bench. It remains to be seen exactly where they’ll fit into the midfield when paired with Carli Lloyd and Tobin Heath. There isn’t a natural defensive midfielder among them, but my guess is that Press and Heath will play on the outside with Lloyd slightly ahead of Brian in the center. If this is the case, it actually makes this an enormous game for Lloyd. She’ll get to play a game in her natural position of attacking central midfielder. If she plays well enough, perhaps she can convince coach Jill Ellis to keep her there for the rest of the tournament.

Abby Wambach – It’s been a rough tournament so far for Wambach. She’s only scored one goal in four games. She missed a penalty kick last game. She’s been embroiled in all sorts of controversies in the media, from blaming the turf for some of her poor play to accusing the ref of having an anti-American agenda, to the ongoing question of whether she’s still good enough, at 35 to be starting for this team. At this point, she’s almost in a no-win situation. The only thing she can do to win will be winning the World Cup… and that’s not totally up to her.

Jill Ellis – If there’s one person who’s been more on the hot-seat than Wambach, it’s coach Jill Ellis. She’s been criticized for changing the U.S. tactics too much and for not changing them enough. She’s been criticized for not having enough power compared to that which the veteran players seem to wield, and then criticized for not doing enough to help the team win. She’s blamed for not bringing any true defensive midfielders and then for muting some of her offensive midfielders’ brilliance by asking them to play defensive roles.

China – The Chinese team is largely anonymous, at least to American audiences. They’re young, without a single player over 26 years old. Their coach, Hao Wei, is a former professional and international player. He’s the fifth head coach of the Chinese team since 2007 and hopes to bring stability to what has been a chaotic national team picture. I caught one of the team’s early games in this tournament and thought they played very strong, organized, defensive-minded soccer.

Who’s going to win?

The United States. Despite creeping doubts to the contrary running up and down my spine all morning, it would be a real shock if the U.S. lost this game. I could see it going into overtime tied, but I just can’t imagine China being able to successfully park the bus the entire game.