Iman Beney, a 18 years old footballer, played as the center forward of the Swiss national team. Courtesy from this site.
Four quarter final matches were held in the last four days.
Surprisingly enough, Italy qualified the match against Norway for the next round. My prediction for the Iceland team was miserably failed. Individual Norwegian players are excellent but the Italy team dominated the match. The superior tactics of the Italian football might have been provided also to the women’s team through Manger Andrea Soncin, who is a former Serie-A player.
The English team and the Swedish team had a tough quarter final match and the former proceeded to a semifinal after a thrilling shootout. The Swedish team, which is managed by Peter Gerhardsson, a former Olympian (1986), had seemed promising since it defeated the German team in the group league. Indeed, the Swedish team took a two-point lead in the first half. But the English team, which consists of many talented players, caught up in the second half and was saved by an excellent goalie Hannah Hampton.
The host country, Switzerland, was defeated by the world champion, Spain, but the difference in the score 0-2 is rather modest. As predicted, the match was dominated by the Spanish team, but, Swiss Manger Pia Mariane Sundhage, who has managed USA, Sweden, and Brasil national teams, certainly knows what should be done at Stadion Wankdorf. Still, Mariona Caldentey and Guijarro Gutiérrez are really good players.
The German and France teams crashed at a quarter final match and again a shootout was taken place. The German team with a red card booked at the beginning 13th minutes was saved by Ann-Katrin Berger (GK), Rebecca Knaak (CB), Sjoeke Nüsken (MF), and VAR, proceeding to another semifinal. It seems that the patient instructions of Germany manager Christian Wück, who was a former German U17 (male) manager paid off. But why wasn’t Sandy Baltimore in the French starting lineup?
My pre-competition prediction for the semifinalists was correct by 75% (England, Spain, and Germany), which is a kind of satisfactory. Still, it’s hard to predict the champion of this competition.
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