England 2-1 Italy
England are through to the final after beating Italy 2-1. I always thought England were the better team and they did play this game better than Italy. The first half was mostly a discouraging game of football in the first thirty minutes all we had was a very weak kick directly to the Italian goalkeepers hands and a failed chance by an English attacker who missed the goal by a couple of feet. Then on the 32 minute Italy in one of their few attempts managed to score a goal, a good goal too. After this England went forward to try and score the draw and Italy had a few good counterattacks, but the score held, Italy ahead by one goal.
The second half was of course an England looking for the goal and Italy mainly defending, nothing much happened during the 45 minutes except a goal that an Italian attacker failed to score, incredible. Then on the fifth minute of extended time, England scored the draw, another fine goal. But here I have to ask a question, how do these referees measure how much time to extend a game? I mean in the Club World Cup I saw the referee give two minute extensions and all the games had a three minute cooling break. Add to that missed time during play, and substitutions it should be at least seven minutes per game. In this case seven minutes is what the referee gave, which I think is OK, just would like to know how they measure it.
So the game went to an extra 30 minutes. The game was about even until maybe the 25 minute when England went all out, hit the horizontal bar and was awarded a penalty which was saved by the goalkeeper but luckily for the English player, the ball rebounded to where she could score. Again, what sloppy penalty shooters these girls are.
As for the foul that was awarded the penalty I think it not only was soft it was actually liquid, I see absolutely no penalty there. Then again I might be biased, when I used to play, amateur never professionally, any handball in the area was a penalty whether intentional or not. And if there was a foul, for it to be a penalty there had to be either blood or a broken bone. I hear in the forties and fifties a player had to be taken to a hospital for a penalty to be given. So forgive me if I am wrong (which I must be, as I know millions of England fans don't agree with me and more importantly the referee and the VAR assistants), but I think that penalty was a gift. Now I do think England were better and deserved to go through but that penalty was not fair.
So now it will be England against either Spain or Germany. I do hope I don't see another penalty in this cup.
chriddi, moecki and/or the-gorilla