Chile v Sweden suspended by rain: Women's World Cup 2019 – live!

More email:

Olympia Diamond is at work at grateful for the commentary. By the time this storm clears, you might be home from work.

Peter Oh wants to know if they’re serving orange slices during the delay. I’ll take one. Need something nutritious after that cake.

Gerard Nugent wants to know the policy on restarting, which I’m going to read right now.

Well, after I make a correction pointed out by Pavel Rubio Hormazabal. Some photographers are calling Christiane Endler “Claudia” instead, and I missed it on one of the captions. I’ll fix it now.

Reminder: We are in a delay due to a thunderstorm.

Let’s check the email …

Sarah Rothwell apologizes for not watching this match: “Sorry, I’m just watching you (or your MBM, at least). My neighbour’s cat insists I bring home a pay check so that he can continue living in the manner to which he has become accustomed.”

Is your neighbor (I’m American, so I’ll drop the “u”) related to Chuck Blazer?

Meanwhile, at the U-20 tournament …

Want some controversy?

Accuweather does not give us much hope here.

To answer one email: We’ll need to figure out how long a delay they can weather. (Sorry, that’s awful.)

On Fox, Ariane Hingst thinks the delay will help Chile re-organize. Heather O’Reilly thinks it will benefit Sweden because their offense is misfiring.

I’m with Hingst. Sweden was getting closer and closer.

It’ll be a while. Fox informs us that they’ll follow the 30-minute rule familiar to all of us youth soccer coaches. Then something we don’t get in youth soccer — a 20-minute warmup.

The officials have cleared the field due to the weather. Thunder has been heard.

Not to be selfish here, but this means I might miss part of the USA-Thailand match. I still have to vote in a local election.

70 min: A couple of shots are blocked, and then Eriksson sends one just over the bar.

To follow up on the last one — so is anyone watching THIS game?

67 min: A yellow card for Eriksson, who might have slid farther than expected on the wet pitch. She catches Lopez on the foot, and Lopez is down.

Not doubting that the collision hurt, but we’re to the point in the match at which Chile might spend a few more seconds on these situations. Lopez is checked for a while but then gives a thumbs-up as she walks away.

65 min: Swedish subs — Blackstenius out, Anvegard in. That’s a drop in experience.

Rolfo out, Hurtig in.

64 min: And the next corner is played in front of the mob. That’s unfortunate, because that means the ball is out of play.

Subs stepping up for Sweden.

62 min: A quick check of Twitter finds that no one I follow is watching this match, which is a pity. Sweden are getting closer to that breakthrough. A shot clangs off Lara for a corner. This one actually goes into the six-yard area, and is cleared for another corner.

60 min: Sweden are finding much more space in the second half. They’re stretching the defense and putting dangerous crosses into the box. One is played out for another corner, and we have maybe 12 players in the six-yard area. Eriksson plays it behind all of them, and Seger steps back for a weak header. That’s probably not what they intended.

58 min: Another head collision, and Chilean forward María Urrutia is taken off on a stretcher. Chile will not wait to see if she passes the trainer’s check — Yesenia López is sent into the game in her place.

56 min: Rolfo brings the ball straight down the middle, with a couple of players wide and not too many Chilean defenders back. But she finds the inevitable futility of indecision, eventually firing harmlessly with a couple of defenders ahead of her. The deflection is no problem for Endler.

A second camera view confirms that it’s raining. Substantially. Fans are moving under cover.

55 min: We’re told that it’s raining, even though it looks like a bright, sunshiny day.

A through ball finds Blackstenius, who takes a rather pointless touch toward the end line rather than the goal. The flag goes up, anyway.

53 min: Another long shot from Chile. Lara is 35 yards out and decides to see if she can lob one over Lindahl. She does, but it’s over the bar as well.

50 min: CHANCE! Seger swipes the ball in the center, and Sweden have a 4v4. The ball goes wide to Rolfo, whose tame shot is made wild by a deflection that misses by an uncomfortable margin. The ensuing corner is unremarkable.

48 min: Hmmm. Jakobsson gets into the area, and Saez gets a foot between her and the ball. I’m no ref, but … oh, wait, I am. That seemed more interesting than a lot of the incidents that have gone to VAR in this Cup.

Kickoff: Chile play the ball deep into the Swedish half. Nothing interesting results.

The story of the World Cup so far is that favored teams are having trouble breaking down teams with resolute defenses and the occasional counterattack.

• Japan failed to score against Argentina
• Canada labored to get one goal against Cameroon
• Germany only got one against China
• And Australia paid the price, losing 1-2 to Italy

The story of the half is Chilean keeper Christiane Endler, who has lived up to the hype.

Correction: It is obviously not 0-1. Apologies.

45 min +3: Fifth corner of the half for Sweden. This one goes to the middle of the 6-yard box, and somehow, Endler’s fist sends it clear.

45 min +2: There’s your long-range shot! A lob sends Lindahl scrambling, but it’s too high.

45 min: Swedish corner kick to the near post. Deflects out. Shot hits Chilean defender. Follow-up shot goes toward the heavens. The women in yellow are frustrated.

44 min: CHANCE! Asllani puts a cross right where Blackstenius wants to go. She gets there but gets her head on the underside of the ball, which simple physics will tell us is not a dangerous shot. If she had risen a couple of inches higher, that would have been a stern test for Endler.

Email from Rob Edwards: “So far I’ve been disappointed we haven’t seen too many long range efforts on goal to test the goalies. Feels like that could be a good approach for some of the lesser fancied teams struggling to move play up-field like Chile.”

And there’s been some talk that Swedish keeper Hedvig Lindahl is past her best. No such talk about Endler, obviously.

41 min: Chilean shot! A quick sequence ends in an optimistic shot that whistles well wide of the post. But they’re smiling.

40 min: Sweden could possibly use a bit more patience. They get the ball deep one more time down the right flank, but it ends with a harmless shot.

38 min: A Swedish free kick sees a training-ground effort to send everyone in motion. The ball, though, does not connect with any of them, so it’s a bit of a waste of energy.