The FIFA World Cup 2019 is awesome

I have got to say it... I truly enjoy and appreciate the FIFA World Cup 2019 for women. I know many of us consider ourselves as skeptics towards female football, but I have to say it once again, this is great action and lots of fun!

The differences between the good and the poor teams might be bigger in female soccer than they are in male football. After all, we never see matches like the 13-0 match between the United States and Thailand in the World Cup for men. But, the good teams are getting really good, and yesterday the match between The Netherlands and Canada showed us all that we have a lot of awesome moments to look forward to as the best teams will start to play against one another in the knockout stage of the FIFA World Cup.

The first matches of the knockout stage will be played tomorrow starting with a match between Germany and Nigeria. Most people do expect this to turn into an easy win for Germany (placed second at the FIFA ranking list), but we all saw that Nigeria was able to cause trouble for France in the last match of the group stage, so maybe they will repeat that deed in tomorrows match against Germany as well.

The second match tomorrow will be played between Norway and Australia. This is a gem of a match, and even though Sam Kerr and Australia are big favorites, Norway should be capable of causing trouble for the ladies from down under and it wouldn't surprise me a lot if Norway would be able to actually beat Australia. I know there isn't much logic to this, but Norway qualified for the World Cup after winning their group in front of the Netherlands. If you remember, the Dutch ladies won the last European championship in football, and yesterday they won against Canada. If Norway stands capable of winning their qualification group in front of those Dutch ladies, they should also be capable of causing trouble for the Australian ladies tomorrow.

The Dutch ladies have been very lucky with their opponent in their first match in the knockout stage. They will play against Japan, a tough opponent, but absolutely one they should be able to beat. And if they manage to win against Japan, they will play a quarter-final against the winner of the match between Italy vs China. As a result, they have one of the easiest paths among the top teams towards the semifinal of the World Cup. The match against Japan will be played on June 25th and you can watch it on NPO in the Netherlands. You can find more information on how to watch the World Cup on Dutch TV in this article (in dutch)

A full overview of the knockout stage

Would you like to pay closer attention to the World Cup now with the knockout stage starting? I have analyzed every single match and you can find a full schedule for the knockout stage in the following article in the IP Address Guide.

I can't really grasp the big amount of soccer on our televisions nowadays. It is only a pity that Copa America is played in the middle of the night, meaning that I do not really get to watch the matches. But, it seems to be some curse on Lionel Messi making it impossible for him to succeed with Argentina in a big championship. Most likely Argentina will leave the Copa America even before the start of the knockout stage... that would be really sad considering the fact that they are the nation with the biggest stars in the entire tournament.