US Women's national team breezes past Vietnam in first round of World Cup

Hey! Guess what? The women's World Cup is on right now and most people don't even know about it! Unfortunately there is good reason for this and me, someone who doesn't really even choose to watch soccer/football really at all no matter the level of competition, is joining the vast majority of Americans and likely the rest of the world in forgetting or ignoring that it is even going on.

The first game in the World Cup sees the champions USA against Vietnam and well, nobody really gave Vietnam a chance in this because there is no reason to. The USA was dominant in the game and almost all of the game was played with Vietnam on defense and it appeared as though this was by design. It appears as though they were trying to avoid an embarrassing defeat the likes of which Thailand went through 4 years ago when Thailand was defeated 13-0.

src

Please understand that i am not trying to be sexist when I say that I did not recognize any of the players names from either team while it was going on. I was only watching it because it was the opening game and that is supposed to be pretty special. I also expected the USA side, who was a -50,000 favorite in Vegas (meaning that in order to win $100 on a bet you have to put down $50,000) to absolutely blow out Vietnam.

They kind of failed to do that and while they did in fact win the game, it was a mere 3-0 victory that has the press saying that the USA women looked "sloppy" and that they "are going to be in trouble when they play a more talented team."

I read a statistic that all the women on the USA side will receive 15x the salary for this one game than the only player on the Vietnamese team make in a month. How's that for some pay equality? This is for the one and only player on the Vietnamese side who plays professionally in Europe as well.

src

The game wasn't boring. It just wasn't as exciting as a lot had hoped, especially me. You can tell just from these highlights that there were quite a few silly errors on the part of the USA that other teams with better players are going to be able to capitalize on if this is truly the best they have to offer.

I think one of my favorite moments of this entire clip montage is where Vietnam saves a penalty kick. The fans from Vietnam were no doubt seriously outnumbered but they celebrated that saved goal as if they had just won the game. I'm sure the fans had no doubt that their side was going to get squashed so it was nice to see them have something to celebrate. To be fair it was a terrible penalty kick but that changes nothing. Saves are very rare in this situation and that goalkeeper definitely has something to remember for the rest of her life.

I will probably watch a match or two as this carries on but since I am in USA and the games are taking place in New Zealand, I wouldn't say that I am going to be waking up at 4am too often to watch!