Three of Arsenal’s Women’s squad will take part in this Sunday’s Women’s World Cup Final, as Netherlands defeated Sweden in last night’s semi-final after extra-time. The victory sets up a World Cup Final showdown with the USA.
Arsenal’s Vivianne Miedema and Danielle van de Donk played the full 120 minutes and will start, fitness permitting, in Sunday’s showpiece final. New Gunners signing Jill Roord came on as a half-time substitute. Sari van Veenendaal, who captained the side, and Dominique Bloodworth will both start Sunday’s final too. Both players left Arsenal this summer.
#NED ARE THROUGH TO THE #FIFAWWC FINAL ?@VivianneMiedema, @DanielleDonk and @JillRoordNL ? pic.twitter.com/dnILQo6osb
— Arsenal Women (@ArsenalWFC) July 3, 2019
Roord scored the winner for the Netherlands in their opening game of the tournament against New Zealand, while Miedema has three goals in France. USA will be big favourites, but Netherlands are the current reigning European champions. The game takes place on Sunday afternoon at 4pm UK time.
Watched the match but not sure what’s up with Vivianne. Almost like she was not enjoying being there.
Apart from one good header from a corner which was brilliantly saved she seems much more dangerous in the WSL but perhaps playing with the Arsenal team suits her better?
Arsenal are set up very differently and move the ball a lot faster giving her more opportunities to get in behind the opposition.
I think we’ve seen for a long time that national team set ups tend to support players’ styles less than club teams where they can work together on a daily basis… unless you are Alexis Sanchez of course.
Maybe teams worthy of getting to a World Cup are better than Yeovil? It’s just a theory, but there might be something in it.
Wiegman gives her far less freedom. She uses her as a target player and tells her to stay in the area for crosses. For Arsenal she has freedom to come and join in with the play. Arsenal also play through balls too, whereas Netherlands are far more built on crosses.
Give some credit to Sweden yesterday, too, who completely disrupted the Oranje style of play for large parts of the game and pressed the dutch repeatedly. And the Netherlands looked tired — lots of sloppy play, poor touches, overhit balls, weakened press, runs cut short, etc. The coach better give them some time to recover. But yes, Meidema ultimately did drop back a lot to pick up the ball and get involved in the play as a result, and for most of the game she didn’t get much accurate service in those places she can be dangerous (level with or… Read more »
Regarding Sari VV and Dominique Bloodworth, I believe Sari was let go because she doesn’t fit Joe Montemurro’s preferred style of playing out from the back, and Bloodworth wanted to move on.
Vivianne has scored three goals in the tournament already. Can’t complain about her performance.
The Dutch side plays with a lot of personality, especially Van de Donk, who was everywhere on the pitch for the full 120 against Sweden. It’s been a great tournament!
You think so? I fear they will be trounced by USA if they play in a similar fashion on Sunday.
Still let’s hope Meado and Leah pick up bronze medals on Saturday.
What tournament have you been watching? Quite sure that any amateur club in a lower league would win this tournament. It’s been hyped way too much for its own good.
This post did not even warrant a reply but couldn’t help myself!
Instead of paying way too much attention to this tournament, it would have been better to actually give the sport some more time to grow to a respectable level. A level similar to that of women’s handball, volleyball and hockey. Now the level is very disappointing for many people; it clearly doesn’t live up to the expectations. In the long run, this won’t do women’s football any good.
Without support whether financial from commerce or from the fans the sport will not improve or grow. It has already come a long way from the previous World Cup. The England vs USA semi-final was a thoroughly entertaining game and football is meant to be an enjoyable pastime for players and spectators alike. The crowd of 54,000 in the stadium and 11.7 million people who watched it on TV in the UK alone will disagree with you. In fact it was the most watched TV programme all year. The BBC should be commended for its coverage of this tournament and… Read more »
I’m not going to argue with you. I fully agree that it deserves all the support it can get. However, as far as I am concerned, I am pretty sure women’s football will be more appreciated (both qualitatively and quantitatively) in the long term if it would be given some more time to mature.
Disagree entirely. Before the womens game was effectively banned, you used to get full grounds and the standard now is miles ahead of back then (the standard of mens football was also pretty abysmal). It is perfectly watchable and trying to equate it to the mens game is pointless. That said, I’d much rather watch the final on Sunday than go to the local park and watch a mens sunday league fixture!
It has been given and is being given time to mature. Viewership and investment rates have been going up at a steady and not meteoric pace. It’s taken time to get it to the current level of attention, which isn’t really that high yet.
There will probably be people who are going to be disappointed for a long time to come, which is no reason to stop stepping things up steadily.
It’s absolutely scandalous how little attention has been paid to the men’s game.
I watched 15 or so games. I stand by my opinion. The tournament was far from perfect, VAR was problematic and a couple of teams didn’t belong there, but it was lightyears away from playing in Canada on Astroturf. The games were unpredictable, open, and fun to watch. No doubt in my mind this was good for women’s football.
Almost 12 million people watching the England match has to be good for England football, incredible number of people, the most watched TV programme all year.
Two equally matched teams can give an exciting match. Usain Bolt would always beat women sprinters by far but if equally matched women sprinters race each other then the race can be thrilling. Enjoy it for what it is, not what it can’t be.
I do not agree. The game is not as physical as the men’s game but many matches were enjoyable. Second half of Brazil vs France was full of actions. France has a winger named Diani. She is so fast and so much of pure winger I felt she could do a job with our male team. Talking about women’s football in general, I have seen great technical gestures even Messi would have been praised for (Carli Lloyd chipped the ball over keeper from half field to score in 2015, a sublime control and goal from our own Daniele Carter that… Read more »
I thought this semi-final was poor, compared to many other matches I have seen (including, obviously, both France-USA and England-USA). In fairness, it was hot and both teams were clearly tired–most of the Dutch players have played every minute of a long tournament. I still thought Van de Donk was terrific; it will be interesting to see her and the USA’s Lavelle (a similarly creative player) fight for control of the centre of the pitch.
Yes DvD was the livewire of the Dutch team on the night but isn’t she always? I still believe USA vs England or France would have made a more fitting final but the draw did not allow for that which puts us in a quandary now as with 3 current players and 2 recently departed Gunners we should be supporting the Dutch to create an upset but you have to admire the USA team for being the best around at the moment. As for the other game let’s see Meado curl in a couple of crots and a hatrick for… Read more »