The USA weathered a strong first half from a feisty England side Saturday night to advance, 3:0, to the semifinals of the 2007 Women's World Cup in China. England, looking much sharper than their competition, held a hard-won scoreless tie at the halftime and appeared to have the US squad back on their heels and playing "not to lose". "Tonight I would have liked to see us start better than we did," said US head man, Greg Ryan, when asked why his team seemed outplayed in the first half of such an important match. "Maybe it's just that we are a young team [with] so many new players," he concluded.

The 5th go-round for FIFA's Women's World Cup is just underway in China and some things are different while others seem true to past form. To this point only the USA (China 1991, USA 1999), Norway (Sweden 1995) and Germany (USA 2003) have won the title and, truth to tell, each competition has pretty much boiled down to a battle between those same three big powers to sort out a winner. To this point the rest of the world has lagged pretty far behind in developing the women's game and the national teams of "the rest of the world" have served as little more than cannon-fodder for the three big guns when it has come time to crown a World Cup champ

The longest day of the year sees CONCACAF's final four square up as the North/Central American tournament nears its conclusion. Hosts the United States play Canada while traditional giants Mexico tackle unfancied Guadeloupe for a place in the final at Soldier Field, Chicago, on Saturday. As another Gold Cup field whittles down almost inevitably to another USA v Mexico final, the weaknesses of this region are again exposed, despite the three and a half places in the World Cup finals FIFA generously awards them. Beyond the big two of CONCACAF, a revolving door of alternately Costa Rica, Jamaica or Trinidad & Tobago have represented the region at the FIFA World Cup in recent years, and have invariably come home 'before the postcards'.