THE SOCCER REPORT
U.S. Women begin World Cup title defense, Ronaldo's Portugal wins Nations League
Jun 12, 2019, 6:34 am
The U.S. Women's National Team look to defend their FIFA Women's World Cup title and become back-to-back champs.
Photo courtesy of Nike, Inc.
The Summer of Soccer is underway with the 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup, UEFA Nations League and international friendlies all part of the schedule this past weekend. The action is about to kick into another gear with the start of the Concacaf Gold Cup and South America's Copa America this week. Here is the week in soccer:
FIFA Women's World Cup
The premier women's international soccer competition kicked off in France with a 4-0 win by the hosts last Friday to open the competition. France is one of the favorites, and pressured to win, due to their role as the home team. The French women are also looking to match their male counterparts that became World Cup champions last summer at Russia 2018.
Germany, another of the favorites, opened their campaign with a 1-0 win over China while 2011 Champions and 2015 Runners-up Japan were held to a scoreless draw against what could be a Cinderella team in Argentina. England and Scotland faced off for the first time at the World Cup, men or women's, with the Lionesses winning 2-1 while potential dark horse Canada picked up a 1-0 win over Cameroon.
The defending champion United States joins the fray on Tuesday (2:00 p.m. CT, FOX) in what will likely be a multiple goal clinic against Thailand. For all the basics on the Women's World Cup, check out this article.
UEFA Nations League
The first ever Nations League, an attempt to get rid of "meaningless" international friendlies, looks to have been a rousing success and it could not have finished in a better way in terms of garnering media attention. European football's golden boy Cristiano Ronaldo led Portugal, the current European champions, to a second European title in three years with a 1-0 win over the Netherlands.
Concacaf Gold Cup
The biannual tournament to determine the champion of North America, Central America and the Caribbean - the region governed by Concacaf - kicks off on Saturday. The United States enter as the defending champions but it is Mexico, the nation with the most titles in the competition, who enter as the favorites to win it all.
Mexico fared well with a 3-1 friendly win over Venezuela in Atlanta on Wednesday followed by a 3-2 win over Ecuador on Sunday up in Arlington, TX. The United States enter with doubts after a 0-1 loss to Jamaica in Washington D.C. and a 0-3 loss to Venezuela in Cincinnati.
CONMEBOL Copa America
South America also has a tournament kicking off this weekend in the revered Copa America. Hosts Brazil are always in the spotlight because of their star-studded squad and will be expected to win despite losing Neymar to injury this past week. Of course, as it has been for several editions now, the main storyline will be if Lionel Messi can finally lift a trophy with Argentina. With what many consider as the best in the world (and best all-time by others) in his prime, the time seems now or never for Messi to conquer the quadrennial tournament as well of the hearts of his country - and what a story it would be to do it on rival turf.
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It would be kind of funny if Christian Walker simply decided he wanted to check out what the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo is all about. “Ow, my left oblique feels kind of sore. How about sending me to Houston for the weekend to get an MRI?” That would be quite a bodacious move, and total bull (props to you if you see what I did there). Of course, faking pain is not the case, and the Astros now cross their fingers that their 60-million dollar free agent signee doesn’t start his Houston tenure on the injured list. It certainly isn’t encouraging to know that Walker missed about 20 percent of last season with a left oblique injury. In 2021 he spent two stints on the IL because of right oblique problems. Obviously the Astros want return on their investment as quickly and as substantially as possible, but they would be fools not to treat this conservatively. Walker turns 34 years old the second day of the regular season. No one should be having night sweats just yet over the possibility that Walker is about to become Jose Abreu 2.0. Abreu was 36 when he debuted with the Astros. However, it is accurate to note that Abreu had a significantly higher WAR in his last season before joining the Astros than did Walker.
If Walker turns out to be sidelined for a month, that would mean the Astros need a first baseman for the first week and a half or so of the regular season. Let the drumbeat for Cam Smith begin! The sample size remains laughably small, but Smith continues to speak softly and swing a very, very big stick. If you’ll accept a .636 batting average as pretty good. It’s only 11 at bats. But yowza! If Walker is to be down into the regular season, and Smith keeps rocketing line drives in the Grapefruit League, the plot thickens. Smith only has 19 at bats above single-A. That’s 19 more than Albert Pujols had when the St. Louis Cardinals decided to have him in their lineup to begin the 2001 season. Albert did fairly well. He’s merely the greatest first baseman in National League history.
The much more conservative approach would be a platoon with Jon Singleton in the lineup against most right-handed pitchers and whoever is not catching between Yainer Diaz and Victor Caratini playing against lefties. Zach Dezenzo would be another option. Cam Smith is not an option to play first base, at least not early in 2025. Just in the last few days, he’s started doing some outfield drills because of the possible pathway to the big club in right field that I wrote about last week. Cam Smith is not going to make a huge jump to the big leagues and basically try to learn a new position on the fly there. However, Isaac Paredes owns a first baseman’s glove. Paredes started 13 games at first for the Rays last season. He made 40 starts total at first over the last three seasons, his only big league starts at first, after a grand total of two at first in the minors. Paredes temporarily moving to first would open up third base for Smith. Just sayin’...
What's in a name?
File this more under trivial than trivia, but here goes. When Isaac Paredes takes the field in the season opener, he officially becomes the third Paredes in Astros’ history. Utility man Jimmy Paredes got some run during the franchise deep in the abyss stage from 2010-13. Relief pitcher Enoli Paredes got 32 1/3 innings in over three seasons 2020-22. There have been only six guys named Paredes in MLB history. Come March 27 the Astros will have had half of them.
On the farm
MLB Pipeline this week released its in order ranking of the Astros’ top 30 prospects. Cam Smith is the obvious number one. Brice Matthews is number two. Drafted as a shortstop, Matthews has a better route to the bigs as a second baseman, given the Astros’ weak depth chart there with Jose Altuve becoming primarily a left fielder. Outfielder Jacob Melton is third. Considering the present state of the Astros’ outfield and that Melton turns 25 this September, if worth a darn, he should play his way on to the 26-man roster at some point this year. Catcher Walker Yanek ranks fourth. He was the Astros’ first round pick last July. Dezenzo rounds out the top five.
We’re under three weeks until Opening Day. Join Brandon Strange, Josh Jordan, and me for the Stone Cold ‘Stros podcast which drops each Monday afternoon, with an additional episode now on Thursday. Click here to catch!
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