Yesterday I wrote about our trip up to Vancouver to see the 2015 Fifa Women’s World Cup on Friday. We saw Switzerland take on Ecuador and Japan defend their title against Cameroon. The first game, Sui v Ecu was at 4pm. Getting into the stadium was pretty easy, just don’t bring a selfie stick. Apparently it could be used as a weapon, as Jenny found out. But at least they have a great system for getting your stuff back at the end! After getting ourselves sorted with food and beer, we found our seats.

Not too shabby!

Finally, the teams come out of the tunnel! It’s actually about to start! I’ve waited months for the start of this game, and a lifetime to be here.

They line up for the national anthems of each country.

Then huddle up for one last bit of motivation.

At the start, the teams seem almost evenly matched.

The Swiss are bigger and clearly more technical than the Ecuadorians. But the Ecuadorians are a scrappy bunch.

At half time, the score was 2-0 Switzerland. One of those goals was an own goal by Ponce on Ecuador (who would later score another own goal and finally the only goal for Ecuador).

A quick note about this tournament. Women’s soccer has come a long ways over the last several decades. I know it’s not to the quality of the men’s, and it shows in attendance and in the skill of the players. But I think it’s so exciting to see these women fighting for the chance to be recognized as worthy of the same excitement the Men’s World Cup brings. And I honestly think they are! With the increased coverage comes more money being put into the development of young women, which of course, creates better players to watch. This article from CNN does a much better (and funnier) job of explaining than me, but I highly encourage everyone to watch as many games as you can!

Anyway, back to the match! Switzerland spanked Ecuador all over the pitch in the second half.

They scored 5 goals in 14 minutes! The final score was 10-1 Switzerland.

Despite the lopsided result, it was very entertaining! We cheered the Swiss ladies as they thanked the fans for watching.

After an hour break, it was on to Japan vs Cameroon. More on that game later!