By: Puter Kang

France, Netherlands and Sweden are three of the tournament favorites for the Women’s World Cup. They all wanted a good and solid win in their first matches. Netherlands and Sweden succeeded, but France and Jamaica both did not convert their chances into goals – they finished the match goalless.

Led by Herve Renard, millions have set their eyes on this coach. At Qatar 8 months ago, Renard brainstormed and accomplished an arguably almost impossible achievement – he took his Saudi Arabian team to defeat Argentina, who later on proved themselves champions. Even though Saudi Arabia was not able to make it out of the group stage, they won the championship and were the only one who did it in the World Cup.

Disappointingly, Renard’s France played a poor game against Jamaica where they wasted several chances and played disjointed.

Netherlands won 1:0, having the VAR (Virtual Assistant Referee) to decide the goal. After 3 minutes of deciding, the goal scorer Stefanie Van Der Gragt was believed not to be offside. Therefore, the referee granted Netherlands their goal, which later on becomes the winning goal.

Sweden made an eye-catching comeback against feedback with a last-minute goal from a corner and a header. They found themselves a 2-goal comeback after the second half and finish with a satisfying win.