Sometimes the best team wins: Spain 2 - Netherlands 1
Notes from Wellington Regional Stadium as Spain sends their World Cup journey to the semi-final, defeating the Dutch 2-1
— Wellington, New Zealand
On a bright winter afternoon resplendent with sun in Wellington, New Zealand, Spain played the Netherlands in the first quarterfinal of the 2023 World Cup. Spain were- overwhelmingly at the start and on aggregate by the end of it- the better team. After two halves of extra time, they won.
The victory was received with no small measure of pleasure among USWNT fans, or even former players, who seemed to rather admittedly enjoy karma visited upon those who enjoyed ours. (More on this to come, separately).
In one among a number of interesting oddities (oddities contributing to the sentiments of American-arrogance swirling above), the match went down at 1 PM local time and prime time in the USA. That’s time enough to make for winter sun on my Wellington afternoon, and allow for the American public to watch in a comfortable timeframe back at home. Unfortunately, the countries actually involved had to observe, if they were able, at 3 AM.
That oddity was no accident. FOX (the USA’s English-speaking broadcast rightsholder) and FIFA conspired to schedule the knockout round of matches in a way that prioritized time zones for a USWNT presumed to not only be in first place in their group, but still be present at this stage of the tournament.
Unfortunately neither occurrence transpired.
And so here we are, or were, watching at comfortable American time zones while our dear friends in Spain and the Netherlands watched their teams vye for further glory at 3 AM.
Alas.
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