FOX Sports FIFA Women’s World Cup Morning Highlights – Thursday, June 18
FOX Sports’ coverage of the FIFA WOMEN’S WORLD CUP 2015™ continues with Round of 16 games on Saturday, June 20. See below for Saturday’s full schedule and for highlights from yesterday’s FIFA WOMEN’S WORLD CUP TODAY and FIFA WOMEN’S WORLD CUP TONIGHT.
SATURDAY, JUNE 20 SCHEDULE
3:00 PM ET – FIFA WOMEN’S WORLD CUP TODAY, FOX Sports 1
4:00 PM ET – Germany vs. Sweden, FOX Sports 1 (Ottawa)
6:00 PM ET – FIFA WOMEN’S WORLD CUP TODAY, FOX Sports 1
7:30 PM ET – China vs. Cameroon, FOX Sports 1 (Edmonton)
1:00 AM ET – FIFA WOMEN’S WORLD CUP TONIGHT, FOX Sports 1
Another U.S. Match, More Records for FOX Sports
The U.S. Women’s National Team beat Nigeria 1-0 in the teams’ third and final FIFA WOMEN’S WORLD CUP 2015™ Group Stage match on Tuesday night in Vancouver, British Columbia, to advance to the Round of 16. And, like the team’s first two tournament matches, the FOX broadcast broke multiple audience records. The match attracted 5.0 million viewers on FOX, making it the most-watched FIFA Women’s World Cup Group Stage match ever and the most-watched soccer match ever on the network, breaking the marks set Friday for USA-Sweden (4.5 million) by 11%, according to fast nationals issued by Nielsen. USA-Nigeria is the third most-watched women’s soccer match of all time, trailing only the USA-China 1999 Women’s World Cup Final (17,975,000) and the Japan-USA 2011 Women’s World Cup Final (13,458,000). Click here for the full story.
Tony DiCicco says the USWNT is a defensively minded squad:
“The U.S. has a different personality now. It’s a defensive team. Right now, they are only scoring one goal a game. They are going to look to win this tournament with 1-0, 2-1 wins unless their offense gets on track. Their attack is going to come around slowly, but it will come around.”
Eric Wynalda disagrees with DiCicco regarding the USWNT’s style of play:
“I think that this is a better team than that. We do have the offense to be able to get at teams, but I just think that they are holding back the reins. They are making sure that they play defense first.”
Alexi Lalas on his “player to watch” for the Round of 16:
“For me it’s Julie Johnston. If this U.S. team is going to win the World Cup, it’s through defense. She has been an absolute rock. If I was still playing, it would be a privilege and an honor to play next to her.”
Wynalda assesses USWNT coach Jill Ellis’s management:
“I just think she draws it up and she expects the game to go a certain way. If the game changes, I’m not too sure she knows how to fix it. It scares me at times because our players are better than that, and they can get after it. And we’re just holding them back.”
Ariane Hingst predicts a Germany-Australia Final:
Quarterfinals: U.S.-Cameroon; Germany-France; Australia-Japan; Norway-Switzerland
Semifinals: U.S.-Germany; Australia-Norway
Third place match: Norway-U.S., with the U.S coming in third
Final: Germany-Australia, with Germany winning its third Women’s World Cup title
Monica Gonzalez on the debutant teams in the Women’s World Cup:
“All the teams that debuted in the World Cup did such a good job. We talked about how many blowouts there were going to be in the Women’s World Cup. But [we haven’t seen] the blowouts we expected, and that just shows and proves that this sport is growing on a global level. [It shows] that we need to have 24 teams in the World Cup and that maybe we need to move up sooner than we think. “
The FIFA WOMEN’S WORLD CUP TONIGHT analysts gave their updated power rankings with the Group Stage complete:
1. Germany
2. United States
3. France
4. Brazil
5. Japan
6. Norway
7. Australia
8. Sweden
9. Cameroon
10. England
