Hello and welcome to the total soccer show. My name is Darrell Grove and I'm joined by a man who's been watching the Women's World Cup with me. His name is Taylor Rockwell. Hello. Hello. You don't sound so happy. I'm mad. Is this because of the Scotland? Come on Scotland. So you do not have Scottish heritage? A little bit. Yeah. I'll bet I've got more than you. I mean, again, I go back to my grandfather on my mother side being Wallace Randolph. Oh, maybe you have more than me.

So the I'll bet I've got more than you. I mean, again, I go back to my grandfather on my mother's side being Wallace Randolph.

Oh, maybe you have more than me.

So the main game we watched together in studio was England, Scotland. Yes. But over the last two days, we have... I took my Rangers jersey off halfway through. You did. I kept my England jersey on. It's still here. To be fair, the air conditioning wasn't on at the time,

so I feel like I was justified in taking off my, like,

1990s polyester long-sleeve Rangers jersey.

We also, you can tell we sound in a better mood than when we did the USA Venezuela review. A little bit, a little bit. Because the Women's World Cup has been more fun than watching the US get dismantled by Venezuela. It was until you mentioned it and I'm sad again. Let's forget about it again. All right, so England Scotland was a big game we watched, but we have six games to look back at over, what, Saturday and Sunday.

It's the last game to get to chronologically, which is how we're doing this. Okay, so let's start Saturday morning at our time. Germany, China. Yep. Germany struggled. I'm going to say this. I think China came out in a sort of, it looked like a sort of 4-4-2 compact, tight defensive block,

and Germany said, how about we just send in endless crosses?

That'll work. This did look, and it didn't. This did look about how I thought it would look for maybe the first half an hour. And then I did expect Germany, given their dominance and their kind of depth that they have, that I figured they would figure things out a little bit more, because I did the China a preview, I expected them to sit very deep and then kind of depth that they have. Yeah. That I figured they would figure things out a little bit more because I did the China preview. I expected them to sit very deep and then kind of counter through a couple players, but not necessarily look to send a bunch of numbers forward. Yeah. So it felt to me like Wang Shuan Shan and Wang Shan. There you expected to counterfeit. Yeah. Only one of which started. I know. I was surprised by this. But I think Shentang came on eventually. But it still was just surprised to me because I expected Germany to kind of expect China to be very deep and have plans for breaking them down or pulling them out. And I thought we'd see Jennifer Marrassan do her sort of misdirect, passing, open teams up kind kind of thing and she just bought in on the

let's keep crossing it alexandra pop will just get on the end of one eventually that seemed to be

the plan that was disconcerting if you're a germany fan i would say as disconcerting or maybe

more so is how susceptible they seemed to getting into little altercations with chinese players

which not to say that like you should just be you know, proper and not get into like any sort of physical arguments or whatever, but more so that that's clearly a tactic that the Chinese players are trying to be physical.

They're trying to knock you off your game.

Exactly.

Because once they can, if they can bump you off your rhythm, that's definitely

ideal for them. But then also if they can take you out of the game by making you focus on the physicality and focus on the infractions, then you're not focused on finding a way through. I think that is what happens. And Germany is somewhat not lucky, because it was a good strike from Gwyn, right? It was. It was a shot from the top of the box, I think, after a corner. it's a nice goal

but I could easily see

another version of this game

where it ends nil-0

and a German who eventually it's a shot from the top of the box, I think, after a corner. It's a nice goal, but I could easily see another version of this game where it ends 0-0 and the Germans are super frustrated at the end. Yes, that is true. That said, when the U.S. women won in 2015, it started off slow for them. And it was a sort of – and this is kind of one of those things where against a very defensive team who have talent, who can easily be overlooked if you're not prepared for them.

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