Go Ladies!

[technoCat]

Gotta admit, I almost gave up on them but they produced a finish for the ages!

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/report/_/id/323673?cc=5901" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

They actually played a hell of a lot better once they went a player down. You just had a feeling this team was going to find a way to win at the end and they did.

Bring on the frogs!

[GrizinWashington]

Soccer's a strange game with the whole (and rather nebulous) "extra time" thing. Why not just be like every other contest and stop the game clock when needed?

And if you're eventually going to resort to a penalty kick, shouldn't the extra quarter of overtime just be sudden death?

[CelticCat]

Scored 2 goals in 3 minutes to go up 3-1 against France in the 82nd minute. Looking good!

[MSU01]

Two awesome games - France had great players in the midfield but bad defense and nobody who could finish a goal except by accident. Should be huge TV ratings for the Final on Sunday, surely ESPN will be showing plenty of ads prominently featuring Hope Solo between now and then!

[bpcats]

The team is definitely fun to watch and it helps when we have the best goal keeper in the world. This tournament run has been made more on heart and guts than anything else. Teams like France Japan Germany and Sweden are very technical with their passing and shows what improvements the US team can make.

Also nice to a really good coach that has the team playing together.

[technoCat]

Interesting story line now for the final. The US whose team has overcome some major adversity in this tournament and displayed huge amounts of heart and perseverance. Then you have the Japanese team whose whole country has done that. Sounds like it will be an epic matchup, I'll definitely be rooting for our girls but wouldn't prolly feel too bad if Japan were to win...

[John K]

Soccer's a strange game with the whole (and rather nebulous) "extra time" thing. Why not just be like every other contest and stop the game clock when needed?

And if you're eventually going to resort to a penalty kick, shouldn't the extra quarter of overtime just be sudden death?

I could not agree more regarding "extra time" and using penalty kicks rather than sudden death to determine OT winners. Particularly since it's such a low-scoring sport, why would you not play sudden death OT? Apparently they experimented with this at one time, although soccer being soccer, they referred to this variation of OT as "golden goal" rather than sudden death. I know that's a big part of the reason why I've never been able to get into watching soccer....because of all the stupid (you may substitute "unusual" in place of "stupid" if you feel the need to be PC) lingo and rules. Mike and Mike had a great discussion of the penalty kicks issue this morning. Surprisingly, the majority of their listener's comments seemed to favor the current OT format. It's the same reaon I don't like college football's version of OT. It's just too artificial and different from the way the game is actually played during regulation. The NHL uses shootouts to break ties during the regular season, but not during the playoffs, and that seems like a good solution.

[grizzh8r]

Soccer's a strange game with the whole (and rather nebulous) "extra time" thing. Why not just be like every other contest and stop the game clock when needed?

And if you're eventually going to resort to a penalty kick, shouldn't the extra quarter of overtime just be sudden death?

I could not agree more regarding "extra time" and using penalty kicks rather than sudden death to determine OT winners. Particularly since it's such a low-scoring sport, why would you not play sudden death OT? Apparently they experimented with this at one time, although soccer being soccer, they referred to this variation of OT as "golden goal" rather than sudden death. I know that's a big part of the reason why I've never been able to get into watching soccer....because of all the stupid (you may substitute "unusual" in place of "stupid" if you feel the need to be PC) lingo and rules. Mike and Mike had a great discussion of the penalty kicks issue this morning. Surprisingly, the majority of their listener's comments seemed to favor the current OT format. It's the same reaon I don't like college football's version of OT. It's just too artificial and different from the way the game is actually played during regulation. The NHL uses shootouts to break ties during the regular season, but not during the playoffs, and that seems like a good solution.

I didn't know there were people who didn't like CFB overtime rules... What would you propose instead? Something similar to the new NFL rules?

[John K]

Soccer's a strange game with the whole (and rather nebulous) "extra time" thing. Why not just be like every other contest and stop the game clock when needed?

And if you're eventually going to resort to a penalty kick, shouldn't the extra quarter of overtime just be sudden death?

I could not agree more regarding "extra time" and using penalty kicks rather than sudden death to determine OT winners. Particularly since it's such a low-scoring sport, why would you not play sudden death OT? Apparently they experimented with this at one time, although soccer being soccer, they referred to this variation of OT as "golden goal" rather than sudden death. I know that's a big part of the reason why I've never been able to get into watching soccer....because of all the stupid (you may substitute "unusual" in place of "stupid" if you feel the need to be PC) lingo and rules. Mike and Mike had a great discussion of the penalty kicks issue this morning. Surprisingly, the majority of their listener's comments seemed to favor the current OT format. It's the same reaon I don't like college football's version of OT. It's just too artificial and different from the way the game is actually played during regulation. The NHL uses shootouts to break ties during the regular season, but not during the playoffs, and that seems like a good solution.

I didn't know there were people who didn't like CFB overtime rules... What would you propose instead? Something similar to the new NFL rules?

Yes, I definitely prefer the NFL's format for OT versus the college version.

[SonomaCat]

I, too, wasn't aware there was anybody out there that preferred the NFL "coin flip to see who gets to kick a FG to win" method of overtime over the incredibly fair and exciting college approach.

Not that I have a strong feeling one way or another.

[GrizinWashington]

Oh, one other irritant about soccer rules: If you have an offside penalty rule, why not paint a freakin' line on the "pitch" (another irritant for another day) so that everyone knows if you're on or off, rather than have the official guess.

And I now two people who favor the NFL style of OT (BAC's description for it is the precise one I gave to my friend who likes it over the college rules).

[John K]

Oh, one other irritant about soccer rules: If you have an offside penalty rule, why not paint a freakin' line on the "pitch" (another irritant for another day) so that everyone knows if you're on or off, rather than have the official guess.

And I now two people who favor the NFL style of OT (BAC's description for it is the precise one I gave to my friend who likes it over the college rules).

Mike Golic of "Mike and Mike" agrees with us too, so that makes three!!

[Egg Salad]

Sudden death/golden goal would just mean teams would play ultra-conservative instead of moving players forward, attacking and risking letting up a counter-attack.

[BandCat]

Oh, one other irritant about soccer rules: If you have an offside penalty rule, why not paint a freakin' line on the "pitch" (another irritant for another day) so that everyone knows if you're on or off, rather than have the official guess.

The offside rule doesn't apply to any specific place on the field beyond being in the offensive side of the team which the offside is being called on. This explanation of the law comes from the US Soccer website:

Offside position
It is not an offense in itself to be in an offside position.

A player is in an offside position if:

he is nearer to his opponents’ goal line than both the ball and the second-last opponent
A player is not in an offside position if:

he is in his own half of the field of play or
he is level with the second-last opponent or
he is level with the last two opponents

Offense
A player in an offside position is only penalized if, at the moment the ball touches or is played by one of his team, he is, in the opinion of the referee, involved in active play by:

interfering with play or
interfering with an opponent or
gaining an advantage by being in that position

Having played soccer from the age of 4 (when offsides isn't enforced, obviously) all the way through high school, and reffed some too, I can tell you that the offside rule is pretty much one of the main reasons lineman exist in soccer. When the ball is in play they are always in line with the last defender to watch if a striking player from the opposing team gets behind. Yes it is sometimes hard to tell but the fact that it can happen at any point in the attacking half it wouldn't be feasible to try and put a line down.

Note on your other "irritant"- Calling a soccer field a pitch is a British English thing, just as the sport itself is known as football in pretty much every other country in the world. Just because some people say "soda" and some people say "pop', doesn't mean one or the other is better.