SantaFeToday.com Santa Fe’s Hometown News
By Arnie Leshin
It’s certainly been a long, long time since I met up with Vietnam, but that was a war, now our United States Women’s World Cup Soccer Team gets to meet a former enemy on the pitch when the competition takes the field on Fox Friday night.
The set time on the television tubes is 7:30 p.m., Mountain Time. The matches actually begin with four matches on Thursday, and the opener on Friday is a taped 1:30 a.m. on Fox Sports 1 pairing Spain versus Costa Rica.
As for Thursday’s Group Stage, they are all on Fox, with two morning matches sending New Zealand against Norway at 1 o’clock, and Australia against Ireland at 4.
In the night games, 8:30 has Nigeria taking on Canada, and at 11 o’clock, it’s the Philippines versus Switzerland.
None of these will be contested on United States soil, and here’s how far the host locations are ahead of the U.S.A. Mountain time.
In Australia —
Perth: 14 hours ahead.
Adelaide: 15 hours, 30 minutes ahead.
Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney: 16 hours ahead.
In New Zealand —
Dunedin, Auckland, Hamilton, Wellington: 18 hours ahead.
But for the USA, it’s playing a nation like Vietnam is the unusual. The war against it actually went from 1963 to 1973, and I fought for nearly three years as a corpsman with two uniforms — Navy and Marines.
But God Bless America, these are different times. Now it’s our ladies going at in a sport it has dominated all four years, winning in fact the last two. Will things change? Could be because who knows what comes around every four years on a soccer field.
On the other hand, while America has been playing soccer for
ages, it’s something new for Vietnam. It’s been on the field for about two decades, but never getting to this level of the competition.
The red, white and blue opens among the favorites again and is in the pool with Vietnam, Netherlands, and Portugal. In round one after Vietnam, we take on the Netherlands on July 26, and Portugal on Aug. 1.
From there comes the round of 16 that starts Aug. 4. The quarterfinals are scheduled for August 10, 11, 12, the semifinals August 15 and 16, the third place match is Aug. 19, and the championship final on Aug. 20. All of these will be taped and played in the morning hours at Australia and New Zealand.
Thus, many United States soccer fans will need to alter their sleep schedules to be able to watch. Most of the matches will take place in the wee hours of the morning.
Fans will also need access to Fox and Fox Sports 1, the televisions channels that will air all the matches or streaming subscription that provides access to the Fox Sports app. — Fubo, YouTube TV and Hulu – are among the streaming services that carry these networks.
The remaining countries set to play are Zambia, Japan, England, Haiti, Denmark, China, Sweden, South Africa, France, Jamaica, Italy, Argentina, Germany, Morrocco, Brazil, Panama, Columbia, South Korea, and Norway.
Leading the way on the USA team is Alex Morgan, the leader and among the most experienced. Leading scorer Trinity Rodman, the 20-year-old daughter of former professional basketball player and Dennis Rodman, 18-year-old phenom Alyssa Thompson, and rising 26-year-old Sophia Smith.
But the growth of women’s soccer globally means greater parity, which means the United States has had to adapt.
“There are so many leagues around the world that are playing more often throughout the season,” says veteran star forward Morgan, “and that are treating players in a professional way that we’ve been fighting for a long time, so I think that has a lot to do with it.”
