Women’s World Cup: Canada Ties Nigeria, but Laments Missed Penalty

Not a lot of what led to this World Cup has gone the best way Canada’s ladies’s workforce might need needed. Fights over funding and paychecks and help. A key participant misplaced to harm. A curious absence of match preparation. Nigeria, embroiled in its personal bitter pay dispute, in all probability would say the identical.

Both groups had declared they had been setting these issues apart this week now that the video games had been right here. “Forget about the distractions, and just focus on the game,” the Nigeria striker Asisat Oshoala, who performs for Barcelona, mentioned earlier this week. But it was maybe becoming, or on the very least unsurprising, that the primary steps of the event — a scoreless draw on Friday in Melbourne — will go away neither workforce solely glad.

Canada, which noticed its soccer matriarch Christine Sinclair fail to transform a second-half penalty kick, will go away believing it may have, and perhaps ought to have, gained. Nigeria, which piled up fouls (16) however not photographs on objective (1), might be questioning the way it will adapt to the lack of midfielder Deborah Ajibola Abiodun; she was despatched off late within the second half for a foul that was upgraded to pink from yellow after a video assessment.

The feelings of the moments after the ultimate whistle recommended each groups had been processing the end result in another way. Nigeria’s goalkeeper, Chiamaka Nnadozie, who had saved the penalty, dropped to her knees as if celebrating a memorable victory. Sinclair, substituted for under the second time in six World Cups, sat glumly on the bench as Canada Coach Bev Priestman whispered encouragement in her ear, maybe in useless.

About the one winner on Friday, it appeared, was Australia. Its victory over Ireland on Thursday, mixed with Canada’s draw, left it atop Group B. Given that it’s coping with its personal disaster of confidence after dropping Sam Kerr, that might be a consolation. For now.

After Australia and New Zealand, the co-hosts of the Women’s World Cup, kicked off the event with victories, the main focus now shifts to the following video games of group play, and to three high contenders taking the sphere: Canada, Spain and the United States.

Spain and the United States aren’t any strangers to the ultimate rounds of the Women’s World Cup, and so they must stand up to the strain of getting a goal on their backs. Canada faces a distinct type of strain: its so-far-unrealized expectations on the World Cup stage. It performed Nigeria to a draw, 0-0, on Friday.

After these video games, there might be a clearer indication of which of those contenders are poised to make a championship run, and which have issues to handle.

Philippines vs. Switzerland

The Philippines, in its first Women’s World Cup, includes a roster with 18 American-born gamers. It will face Switzerland, a workforce with just one earlier Women’s World Cup look, in 2015. The two nations have by no means performed one another; neither is predicted to advance far on this event.

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One of the hardest elements of watching the Women’s World Cup this yr could also be protecting observe of on a regular basis zones in Australia and New Zealand the place the matches are being performed.

That would require a number of math and, in some circumstances, middle-of-the-night alarms. So allow us to assist!

Our pals at The Upshot have created a helpful software that lets you see the World Cup schedule simply, precisely and within the time zone of your machine’s location.

The third time round, Megan Rapinoe’s response to a probably career-ending knee harm went no additional than a watch roll. She had torn her anterior cruciate ligament. She may reel off the restoration schedule from the highest of her head. She may see, crystal clear, the following 9 to 12 months spooling out in entrance of her.

The surgical procedure, the painstaking rehab, the grueling weeks within the gymnasium, the anxious first steps on the turf, the sluggish journey again to what she had as soon as been. As she thought of it in 2015, she felt one thing nearer to exasperation than to despair. “I was like, ‘I don’t have time for this,’” she mentioned.

The first time had been completely different. She had torn the anterior cruciate ligament in her left knee at age 21, when she was a breakout star in her sophomore yr on the University of Portland. At that point, she felt what she known as “the fear” — the concern that it would all be over earlier than it had begun.

Over the final yr or so, that concern — and the looking questions it prompts — has coursed via ladies’s soccer. The sport has at occasions appeared to be within the grip of an epidemic of A.C.L. accidents, one so widespread that at one level it had sidelined 1 / 4 of the nominees for final yr’s Ballon d’Or.

Vivianne Miedema of the Netherlands, whose knee harm will preserve her out of the World Cup, identified that, this season alone, nearly 60 gamers in Europe’s 5 main leagues had torn their A.C.L.s. “It is ridiculous,” she mentioned earlier this yr. “Something needs to be done.”

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