Japan loses! I was wrong!

Well I have had a pretty good rate guessing winners so far in the Women's World Cup, this is the first time I have been wrong and also it is one that I am very disappointed to see. I of course have nothing against the Swedish side and they played fantastically against a team that has looked rather unbeatable up to this point.

Sweden basically controlled the entire match, especially in the first half and Japan really didn't seem to be capable of making much happen offensively until the final 15 minutes of the game.

Japan is probably a bit regretful about a couple of things, mainly missing the Penalty Kick opportunity that came late in the 2nd half. There are a lot of "what if's?" that happen in sports but if that PK had gone in, we would have gone to extra time and Japan got a late goal that would have been an equalizer but unfortunately, that isn't the way things worked out.

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As we've seen a few times so far in this tournament, one sure-fire way of not scoring is when you miss the target entirely. I am sure that this will haunt Riko Ueki for years to come. Out of the remaining teams, Japan was 2nd most likely to win the entire thing based on bookmaker odds and I guess this loss just goes to show that anything can happen here.

One thing that I am sure is going on right now is that Spain is probably quite happy that they will not have to face Japan again because even though Spain dominated every statistical element of their last meeting, Japan still got the stats where it mattered most in that they put the ball in the back of the net 4 times while Spain managed none.

Seriously, the stats on that game were amazing and this is something that we rarely see in any sport, not just football of the soccer variety.

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There were tears and no doubt a lot of regrets about various missed opportunities as you would expect from any team that made it this far into the tournament but I would be willing to bet that the Japan team still cleaned up the locker room and left a kind note for the hosts, as is tradition.

Personally I am sad to see Japan get knocked out of the competition because I appreciate their style of play and I also have a soft spot for Asian teams in any global competition because they are almost always the underdogs when it comes to any team sport.

We've got too very late games, well at least where I live, tonight and I am going to try my best to stay awake to see them. I have France and England picked to advance but I would really like to see Australia beat the French to kind of make this more fun for the host nation and their fans. I think England defeating Colombia is kind of a foregone conclusion and the bookmakers' odds on this reflect exactly that.

If you haven't been watching the games there are only a few left and this is where things get really interesting. It might be the time to start!