Group B: Germany and Norway will beat Thailand and Ivory Coast (IVC) and advance with Germany winning the Group. Ivory Coast will not advance and Thailand with near certainly will not advance. The 4 Third place finishers will come from within the other 5 Groups, barring some very very strange stuff happening, like, completely bizarre stuff many matches deep within this and other Groups...Thailand is outta here.
Its interesting to note that Thailand's already tenuous chance at advancing as one of the four 3rd Place teams that will get through (which looked possible, albeit remotely so, at one point...due to their very poor Goal Differential -3 going INTO GERMANY) was effectively ended when Columbia upset France.
So anyone wondering what ramifications that humungous upset had on things, theres
ONE thing. It pretty much officially sent the Thailand Women home, ended their participation in this World Cup tournament.
Unlikely that Thailand realized that at the time of that
HUGE upset but interesting to ponder on the moment since then that Thailand became aware of that being the case. They had to be like: "Mị̀mī wiṭhī kār r̀wmpheṣ̄!!!!" or something like that.
No...it doesn't translate into "Oh Darn." lol.
Goal Differential (GD) in Group B = Germany up by 6 Goals going into these matchups. To surpass Germany and win the Group Norway would have to beat IVC by 6 goals + one more goal than however many Goals Germany beats Thailand by.
Linesmakers have set that line at 6.5 so, assuming that to be a sharp line, basically Norway would have to beat IVC by 14 Goals.
Norway will not KNOW how many goals Germany won by going into their match as both matches are at the same time despite the fact FIFA Schedule (as can be seen in Group B Matches graphic in a post above this) says Norway/IVC begins directly after GER/THAI. Fox Sports who is broadcasting the games and the books taking bets on them both have these matches happening at the same time so I will trust them over FIFA. (FIFA apparently makes "error". Who'd have thunk such a thing? lol.)
Pause for a moment to let GD + matches at same time sink in.
Matches at the same time is key. If Norway makes a part of their gameplan doing all within their power to make a run at winning the group they play to score as much as they can.
If they come in conceding the Group Win to Germany due to, it'd be reasonable to call it, impossible GD to overcome and relax in the match mainly or all together playing backups including Sørpebøl Susegg Håndlykken-Rønningen (
nickname: "Egg going fast on The Breeze" or "Wind Egg"
...hard to translate from Dutch to English cuz they have weird letters with dots, lines and other embellishments)
which hopefully they do sub in Susegg cuz she'd be the youngest player ever in a World Cup (
by FAR at just 2 years and 110 days old) but hopefully they won't cuz it'd be bad for our OV play as she is only 1 foot 2 inches tall and her recorded time running the length of the pitch is...well, she's never made it all the way cuz she gets distracted by shiny objects or lays down to take a nap then gets up demanding to eat and refuses to run any more.
Susegg Håndlykken-Rønningen is a 17th strring backup though, unlikely to see any time (
if she is even awake for it) so should not be, doesn't need to be factored into capping this game.
"What will be Norway's gameplan?" does need to be thought about though. This is among the difficulties we encounter where choosing a side to back Against The Spread (ATS) and/or Over/Under (Total OV/UN). Obstacles we face here are unusual and hard to predict, to say the least, with this matchups and the Big Line on the German game.
Versus the teams they are playing here Germany & Norway are as close to "Already Advanced" as Japan & Brazil are, the only 2 teams in this tourney who have locked up advancement. The hard question is: "When does Germany & Norway begin resting players and how well/seriously do those subs play?" Having secured advancement and not wanting to risk injury of thier best players both NOR & GER need to not risk disaster by having their best players on the pitch for nothing.
Then we have the unknown quantity of "What will be the Coaches' gameplan of substitution players? Burn Clock, play keep away or let them try to impress, show off thier skill for Coach and The World by making many many goals?
You'd have to think the latter, with some players at least...like a "test" on the biggest stage of Women's Soccer for Coaches to see what they have but of course Coach does not want to risk injury to backups either as many hard matches lie ahead and depth of squad may prove to be what dictates eventual winning squad.
There are also the questions of
"How hard will the eliminated teams try?" and if they try
"How much can they even STOP these 2 much better teams from scoring at will?"
So these 2 matchups present less than ususal decisions for Coaches to make and they present difficult and unusual challenges for Bettors because the variables here are not things that can be forecasted by past stats, matchups, recent performances or really anything remotely resembling logic or sound handicapping strategy.
To bet into these games is risky as, unavoidably, a wager here si based so much more off of "guessing" what will most likely be Coache's/Team's strategy than anything else we are accustomed to.
By far.
One thing that occurs to me that has at least a CHANCE at applying to locating value on plays in these matchups is TWO things really...
Each Bettor will have to decide for themselves how much they think these things might be relevant, maybe contribute to forming a good value play...
Firstly If you look at the picks of sharp NFL bettors you don't see them messing with that "FAVE -12" (or any double-digit (dd) line) or, on the rare occasion they do, they're almost always on DOG + all those free points.
Which to those Bettors who are more Square Shaped than Sharps has us say "wtf thats crazy no effin way" when they see the Sharp on "Jaguars + 12", for example.
The Square knows that Jaguars suck, the Sharp knows that dd lines over NFL history = DOG+ cashing as much as 74% of the time with filters (Home/Away, DIV matchup or not, FAVE off win blah blah blah) applied, % might be even higher. I've seen it suggested that dd Dogs cash near 72% (close to 3 out of 4) without filters. But I don't know how true that is. Someone around RX does...you can Bank ion that.
This ain't the NFL though, I realize, so success on the Big Dog may translate as well as Mandarin into Ancient Hebrew with this, today is an opportunity to see.
The 2nd thing that might give us a thing to consider here is The timing of Switzerland's merciless beating of Ecuador by a score of 10-1 (8-1 in 2nd Half with Fabienne Humm scoring the fastest hat-trick in Women's World Cup history) might factor into Germany/Thailand & Norway/Ivory Coast outcomes and particuarly the BIG line of Germany -6.5 (Norway line is -4.5).
This is a very important tournament for FIFA in that its the first Women's World Cup thats got this much attention. Vegas has set lines from the start of it for the first time. In 2011 they jumped on somewhere around the end of the Group Stages due to demand from Bettors in Vegas to bet Women's World Cup.
Merciless thrashings of lesser teams that leaves girls crying on the pitch and many feeling sorry for girls, leaves some with a "bad feeling" about Women's Soccer, thinking "Wow this is not very much fun seeing those poor girls get humiliated", one might think can only be bad for FIFA where cultivating viewership of Womens Soccer is concerned.
To get at how you personally feel on the matter of lesser teams taking humiliating losses, whether that evokes any empathy within you or you feel instead that teams should play to score as much as they can watch this, the Swiss pulverizing Ecuador with your Mind Blank and see how it makes you feel:
On the other hand: The biggest reason cited, in a poll of Americans as to why they don't watch Soccer, was "not enough scoring". Americans wanna see goals.
I certainly don't wanna imply the possibiltiy of corruption on FIFA's part , rather The Main Thing I wanted to get across is that the thrashing of Ecuador by The Swiss happening so soon before todays matchups, which both the lines and skill level of teams involved suggests could also wind up in thrashings is, at the very least, interesting as its presented FIFA Marketing Machine with the valid question:
"Might ass-whoopings be a negative desirous of being avoided...for inspiring viewership, ticket sales, growth of the sport?"
Or does FIFA just let it go where it will, Goals good for the game, let it be?
I've arrived at the same place as powerz here
Thailand +6.5 +100 - 1*
Thailand U7.5 -115 - 1*
Norway over 5.5 -110 1* -
just the above being the verious obstacles along the path of how I got there.
peaceout. I may do Group A if so it won't be anywhere
near as long as this. These Matchups/Circumstances are quite unique. Two poor teams in a Group, eliminated, HUGE point spreads.....make your own plays based on what you think potentially relevant or not. :toast:
hno:
