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     HOST FRANCE OPENS WITH A BANG
Unofficially, 44 entries grace our 2nd HWCI Women's World Cup Pool

HOME, CA (smt) -- Host A1-France came out to play and any nerves were gone with an early goal and continued to dominate the first half and control the second half in a 4-0 rout of A2-Korea Republic.  A great sellout (45,261) atmosphere in Paris saw a flyover with blue, white, and red smoke and nice opening ceremony (thanks, Telemundo via NBC Sports App!) push the women's game to new heights.  A controversial VAR decision held FRA from dominating further as a beautiful goal in the 27' was taken away by a reversal and declaring offsides (by like a few inches, if we trust the screen cap).  Didn't take long for VAR, which debuted last year in the men's World Cup, to become the spotlight.

Unofficially, we set a Women's World Cup record with 44 entries (from a record 31 people), which is double the 22 we got in our inaugural pool.  It also surpassed the men's EURO pool in 2012 (39) and 2016 (27) and the first two men's World Cup pools (21 in '98, 23 in '02) and matched the men's World Cup pool in 2006.  Unscientifically, our pool shows the interest in women's soccer is 55.7% of the men's (79 entries last year) which is much better than the 38% equal pay disparity the women's lawsuit alleges. 

All 44 entries picked FRA so everyone is tied for first with a single point!  This is one of 6 unanimous picks (BRA>JAM, ENG>ARG, USA>THA, USA>CHI, SWE>THA).  As expected, F1-United States is picked by 28 to win their fourth WWC title.  FRA is picked by 7, B1-Germany and D1-England by 3 each, E4-Netherlands by two, and A3-Norway by one.  GER is picked to lose the final by 21.  Every team except C4-Jamaica was picked to reach the Round of 16 with FRA, GER, ENG, and the USA being unanimous choices to make the Round of 16.  FRA, USA, and GER are unanimous picks to make the Quarterfinals.

I'll be doing daily gameday updates on our Blog and re-posted on Twitter.  These updates will be every few days or so and will be emailed out.  Everyone can view their pick and bracket by clicking the "Pick" link in the standings next to their nickname.  If you want to know who everyone is, the Who's Who in the Pool is now available.

   Ins 'n Outs -  Goals (1 Match): 4 (4.00/match) [Own: 0, Subs: 0, Stoppage: 0, Extra Time: -]... Scoring First: 1-0-0 (0 Nil-Nil ties)... Leading at Half: 1-0-0 (0 ties)... Shutout: 1 (1-KOR)... PK: 0/0... PSO: -... Red Card (GF/GA): 0 (0/0)... Multiples: 1 [Renard 2 (1-FRA)]... Zero SOG (Shots): 0... Goal Line Tech (Award): 0 (0)... VAR: 1 (1-FRA Off+{g-} 27')... 63%+ Poss: 0... 20+ Shots: 1 [1-FRA (21vKOR) W]... Regions: UEFA (9) 1-0-0, AFC (5) 0-1-0, CAF (3) 0-0-0, Concacaf (3) 0-0-0, CONMEBOL (3) 0-0-0, OCEANIA (1) 0-0-0...

   Bits 'n Bobs -  E3-NZL played the last friendly and lost at Wales 1-0 on Tuesday... on Wednesday, FOX announced all the games will be streamed in 4K and in Dolby Digital 5.1 (previously, only fuboTV and DirecTV offered 4K) provided you have a Roku or Apple TV that supports 4K (like I do!)... Fivethirtyeight finally came out with their predictions for the Women's World Cup (like they did in 2015) and has FRA as the favorite due to an easier path and home-field advantage... FRA's dominant first half saw them outshoot KOR 17-0 and take more corners (10-1)... in the second half KOR matched FRA in shots, 4 each... watching the 4K feed on FOX Sports streaming on my Apple TV 4K and LG OLED, no commercials but you can head the break setup and visuals which is a cool behind-the-scenes look and listen... FRA scored the earliest goal in WWC kickoff match history in the 9'... it's annoying that FOX has the FOX Sports GO, FOX NOW, and FOX Sports apps... the FRA 4-0 opening win is similar to when host RUS won 5-0 in their opener last year... I really liked the opening ceremony because it was short (8 1/2 minutes), had the weird French flair, and used non-American music sung by French singer Jain... five people submitted 2 entries and four entered the max of 3... while the 2015 pool had just three days notice (and thus, the first day was not picked), we had 11 days notice which resulted in a soccer pool record of 9 on Sunday (five days until deadline) and a record 25 with four days to go; we got none on Wednesday (two days until deadline)... the men's U-20 USA team faces Ecuador in the quarterfinals Saturday at 8:30 am PDT... the men's CONMEBOL Copa America begins June 14 and will have their final the same day (13:00 PDT) as this one, July 7 08:00 PDT... the men's Concacaf Gold Cup begins June 15 and also will have their final on July 7 18:15 PDT...

I might've had too much expectation from the Asian teams...
Scott