1. What drooling moron decided to put all of these games on artificial turf? The on-pitch temperatures are hotter, the ball moves in strange and unnatural ways, and every time a player slides on that surface they come up covered in little balls of rubber. There is no reason to have artificial turf in any professional sport for any event, let alone at the world’s premier event for a sport, and whoever made that decision really needs to be dunked in maple syrup and abandoned in a forest with nothing but a compass and a pair of hiking boots.
2. The pace of the games is slower than it is for the men’s games, which means that the players have to rely on things like skill and strategy rather than just blowing past people on sheer brute force. It makes it an interesting game to watch.
3. Someone should really alert the broadcasting teams that there are games going on so they can interrupt their human interest stories and vague recollections of past glory now and then to let us know what is happening.
4. Whoever clues in the broadcasting teams can also drop a note down to the producers so they can choose to broadcast the feeds from cameras that are actually showing the game rather than those that are showing slo-mo closeups of individual players or, worse, of coaches or random groups of fans. It gets rather irritating after a while, this constant returning to the game only to find that the run of play has proceeded rather far from where we left off.
5. Watching Thailand play Ivory Coast was a lot of fun, since neither of those teams has any chance at all of advancing very far and they were just there playing their hearts out for the sake of playing. I thought one Ivory Coast player was going to have an absolute meltdown after missing a fairly easy goal toward the end. Passion – it matters.
6. I like having the tournament in Canada, since all the time zones work out and the games aren’t being played at 4am here the way they will be during the next two Men’s World Cups. Go Canada!
7. I have now watched enough soccer over the last two years that I can get legitimately upset at the poor level of officiating that I’ve seen so far. Honestly, between the refs, the commentators, and the producers, it’s like they just sent the B-team out for this. The players and fans deserve better than that.
8. I missed the US-Australia game due to a prior commitment and may well miss most of the US-Sweden game tonight depending on how the rest of my life shakes out, but I entertain high hopes of seeing them play at some point.
9. The next time an announcer describes one of the players as “the Female [Insert Name of Male Star Here]” I’m going to go spare.
10. The more I watch soccer, the less I care about American football. Eventually I will become That Guy and lose touch with my culture completely. Unless I already have.
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