Panama kept Canada in check for 44 minutes Sunday, but a seven-goal, 34-minute spell ended the Central American’s hopes of an astonishing upset at the semifinal stage of the CONCACAF Women’s Championship. By advancing to the final, Canada secured automatic qualification to the 2019 Women’s World Cup in France, where it’ll look to improve on a quarterfinal showing at the 2015 finals on home soil.
With the scores level at 2-2 in an ACC game between Duke (No. 11 in the country) and Clemson, Blue Devils senior midfielder Taylor Racioppi struck what would prove to be the match-winner in the 77th minute from 24 yards out.
Using the outside of her boot to full effect, Racioppi put some fiendish swaz on her effort, which took an extremely pleasant banana route inside the far post. The first time you see it, you’ll want to celebrate just like Racioppi did.
Last October, FIFA announced the 2018 men’s World Cup would dole out $400 million in prize money. This October, FIFA announced the 2019 women's World Cup prize money would also increase its prize money substantially — but not nearly enough.
From the 2014 to the 2018 World Cups, FIFA increased the men’s payouts by $42 million to a cool $400 million, with France receiving $38 million as World Cup champion.
For Mexico, how things have played out in the past week of the CONCACAF Women’s Championship has been nothing short of a disaster.
Storms clouds seemed to loom for the team right from the start in its opening Group A match against the U.S. No one really expected the Mexicans to beat the Americans, but they were certainly supposed to give them a game. They couldn’t do that.
The USWNT completed its demolition of Group A with a convincing 7-0 win over the women Soca Warriors at Sahlen Stadium in Cary, North Carolina last night. Head coach Jill Ellis decided to return to her preferred line up — the starting XI she went with for the opening 6-0 win against Mexico — for the team’s final group game.
Two more fates were sealed in the fight for the final UEFA berth in the 2019 Women’s World Cup Tuesday night. A few weeks ago, the four second-place teams with the highest point totals in their groups during Women's World Cup qualifying were drawn against each other in two-legged playoffs.
Denmark faced off against the Netherlands in a highly anticipated repeat of last year’s Euro final while Belgium looked to get through Switzerland to step one closer to its first-ever World Cup berth.
FIFA launched its first-ever global strategy for women's soccer on Tuesday. It outlined three objectives for the game and five strategies to reach those goals. Hidden in each is the real reason FIFA is putting an emphasis on women's soccer.
We applaud any effort on the part of FIFA to grow the women’s game. It’s much needed from an organization that for years was run by a man whose only idea for increasing interest in women's soccer was to have the participants wear shorter, tighter pants.