17 July 2011

WWC Final Twitter Style

00:00 - Watching the Stars and Stripes being paraded out for a World Cup Final (even if women's)...priceless

00:00 - Trying not to laugh as the shortest player from Japan is barely taller then the boy in front of her

05:00 - Can't believe we almost score in the first 45 seconds! We've looked good so far - lots of possession

10:00 - Should have scored at eight minutes - inches wide by Lauren Cheney! We're doing well - lots of space

15:00 - We've had two great chances coming down our left side. Two (four in total) more chances wasted

20:00 - ANOTHER great chance down the left. Rapinoe is causing them a lot of trouble

25:00 - Shots: USA 10, Japan 2. We're averaging a shot every 150 seconds. Things seem under control now

28:00 - WAMBACH LEFT FOOTED ROCKET OFF THE CROSSBAR! What a rip! Totally one-sided now

30:00 - Almost got burned. That's how fast this game can change. We were lucky the shot was poor

35:00 - OK, this is getting scary. Cheney missed a wide open header. This could have been over already

45:00 - Halftime. Well, that was a pretty good first half performance. All we didn't do was put the ball into the back of the net. Japan has shown how dangerous they can be if we let them control the game. I like the strategy of pressuring them when they have the ball. It has really disrupted their game. I don't think there is anything else that needs to be done differently in the second half except for our finishing. The longer we let them hang around, the more likely they are to burn us

48:00 - ALEX MORGAN HITS THE POST! Is this one of those games??? We've got to get one of these

60:00 - So weird. Poor in the semis versus France, yet scored three. Tonight, best performance and no goals

68:00 - GOAL!!! USA!!! 22-year old Alex Morgan puts the USA ahead! What a counter-attack strike! Beautiful play and shot. Nice left foot into the side corner. THAT was a long time coming! FYI, she was born in 1989. Totally

75:00 - Last quarter of the match. Do we make any changes? I'm not so sure unless someone seems tired

80:00 - Goal Japan. Unbelievable. What a mistake to clear it back to the center five feet from goal. Just like I thought, all it took was one mistake and they scored. So frustrating. Game on AGAIN. Unbelievable

90:00 - End of regular time. Well, 30 more minutes to be played. Let's hope we can score in ET again like we did against Brazil. This game can be so cruel. I think that as this game has gone on, the more even it has become. We still have the best chance to win in my opinion, but you just never know in this game

103:00 - GOAL!!! WAMBACH FROM MORGAN!!! 2-1 USA!!! She's now scored 4 games in a row with her head. BTW, the injury at half that brought Morgan into the game has proved very fortunate. Need to hold this

111:00 - Heart attack time. A handful of errors almost cost us there. We're so close to number three...

115:00 - We need just need to keep possession and slow this game down. Only need to kill off five more minutes. Good grief. Another chance by Japan that almost went in. Rampone with the clearance off the line

116:00 - Goal Japan. I can't believe what I'm watching. Good effort but it deflected in off a USA player. This is just like the Brazil game except that the roles have been reversed. 2-2 - only four minutes from more PKs

119:00 - Wambach should have ended it there! Now a red card for Japan! Probably too late to effect anything

120:00 - Could have scored from the foul. So close! Well, we're headed to PKs just like against China in 1999


End of game - Japan wins on PKs. What a heartbreaking loss. I knew I had a bad feeling about how this game was progressing earlier on in the match. We let this one go. Well, I guess this WAS about destiny, just for Japan. So against the run of play. I can't believe we didn't win this game.