U.S. Women’s National Team Faces China Tonight In 2015 Women’s World Cup Quarters

 

The U.S. Women’s National Team will face China tonight at 6:30 pmCST in the quarterfinals of the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup. The game at Lansdowne Stadium in Ottawa will be televised nationally on Fox.

The winner of today’s US-China game will face the winner of today’s Germany-France game on Tuesday at Olympic Stadium in Montreal in the semifinals. In tomorrow’s other quarterfinals Australia faces Japan in Edmonton and England plays Canada in Vancouver.

Jill Ellis and the USWNT will be without Megan Rapinoe and Lauren Holiday against China as they both picked up their second yellow cards of the tournament against Colombia and are serving one game suspensions. Morgan Brian is expected to get more playing time in place of Holiday, while players have thrown the names of Christen Press and Heather O’Reilly in to fill Rapinoe’s void. Personally, I’d love to see Lori Chalupny get a chance in the midfield even though she’s predominantly been used as a defender during her time with the USWNT.

A constant criticism of Jill Ellis’s squad this tournament has been the lack of scoring plays coming out of the midfield. Rapinoe and Holiday had been the two most consistent players thus far. Ellis’s 4-4-2 system has taken most of the criticism for not featuring a true central midfielder. While the U.S. shouldn’t look past China, it does appear to be lucky for them that Rapinoe and Holiday are missing this game and not the potential game against France or Germany.

The USWNT last played China in December of 2014 in the Brasilia International Tournament. The teams played to a 1-1 draw with Carli Lloyd scoring for the U.S. China and the United States played back-to-back games in April of 2014 with the U.S. winning 2-0 and 3-0. Lloyd scored two goals in the second game of that stretch.

Dating back to 2012, these two teams have played 8 times with the USWNT winning seven times prior to that last draw. In those 8 matches, the USWNT has outscored China 25-3. Of those 25 goals, Abby Wambach and Carli Loyd have each scored 5 times and Sydney Leroux has scored four.

The most important match between China and the USWNT occcured the last time the two met on the World Cup stage. In 1999, 90,185 people were on hand in Pasadena, California as Brandi Chastain’s successful penalty kick gave the USWNT it’s last World Cup title. The two St. Louisans on the USWNT, Lori Chalupny and Becky Sauerbrunn also had big moments against China. Chalupny scored the game-winning goal against China in the semifinals of the 2008 Olympics. The U.S. would go on to beat Brazil 1-0 to take home the gold medal. Sauerbrunn captained the USWNT for the first time against the Chinese side in the 2013 Algave Cup.

 

Television viewership numbers have been high for the USWNT’s games during the tournament. An average of 4.7 million viewers watched the Round of 16 match against Colombia with viewership peaking at 6.4 million towards the end of the game. It became the most-watched soccer match ever on Fox Sports 1 and beat the average of 4.5 million that watched the USWNT take on Sweden in group play on Fox. Fox Sports 1 is in an estimated 85 million homes while an estimated 116.4 million homes have access to Fox. Fox estimates that the overall viewership for this Women’s World Cup is 79% higher than during the 2011 WWC. Those figures should be taken with a grain of salt, however, considering that ESPN had the rights to the 2011 tournament.

St. Louis has been the top market for viewership of the USWNT’s games in this World Cup. The Washington D.C. market ranks second.

While the U.S. games in the 2015 Women’s World Cup have been drawing exponentially better on tv compared to years past, there will always be idiots in the world and sometimes they expose themselves to the public. Sports Illustrated contributor Andy Benoit apparently is immature enough to still think that putting down women’s sports is cool. Amy Poehler and Seth Meyers explain the situation and what they think of Mr. Benoit.

 

In other USWNT news, Ali Krieger is in the latest issue of ESPN The Magazine. It’s the 2015 Body Issue.

Tune in to Fox tonight at 6:30 pm CST to watch the United States Women’s National Team take on China in the quarterfinals of the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup.

Beginning at 5:30 pm tonight, Ballpark Village is hosting a watch party on the Busch II infield. The game will be shown on the 24-foot outdoor screen while Fox Sports Midwest, Fox 2, Saint Louis FC, Soccer Master and the St. Louis Ambush will be providing giveaways, face painting and more.

International Tap House will also be hosting watch parties at their locations in Chesterfield, Central West End and Soulard featuring $3 pours of Civil Life brews. Amsterdam Tavern will be hosting the official watch party for the American Outlaws St. Louis Chapter.

One Nation. One Team.

More than ever, today we are #OneNationOneTeam. #LoveWins pic.twitter.com/4A7IsF8MsV

— U.S. Soccer WNT (@ussoccer_wnt) June 26, 2015

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