I’m late bringing you this as I was waiting for a Women’s World Cup all-star team to be announced first. One hasn’t been and likely won’t be. I guess FIFA just wasn’t interested in doing this anymore. Oh well. At least we still have the individual awards to celebrate and debate.
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Golden Ball: Megan Rapinoe USA
Silver Ball: Lucy Bronze ENG
Bronze Ball: Rose Lavelle USA
I’m pretty sure Rapinoe sewed this up during the USA’s match v Spain. Not necessarily the Golden Ball but a ball definitely. Bronze was a bit of a surprise but it seems credible as she is in the Rapinoe mold minus the goals. Lavelle in for the Bronze ball was a surprise which isn’t to say she didn’t play her butt off. She did. I just think there were perhaps other better candidates, like perhaps Amandine Henry or even Sari van Veenendaal.
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Golden Boot: Megan Rapinoe USA
Silver Boot: Alex Morgan USA
Bronze Boot: Ellen White ENG
With Ellen White stymied by VAR three times in her quest to take this, it came down to Rapinoe in the final to make sure Morgan didn’t get this. Yes, I was actively cheering for one USA player to beat another USA player. I still wanted the Netherlands to win the match, don’t worry.
All three players ended the tournament with six goals with Rapinoe and Morgan tied with six goals and three assists. Rapinoe collected these stats in a shorter amount of playing time than Morgan so to her went the spoils. Thankfully.
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Golden Glove: Sari van Veenendaal NED
The current trend to not automatically give this award to the goalkeeper for the winning team? I’m LOVING it. Hope Solo getting this in 2015 was egregious as she did even less than Alyssa Naeher here. Going by performance and skill and not by the winning team is exactly how it should be determined.
I don’t believe anyone was credibly arguing against van Veenendaal being award this accolade. She won it not just with her performance in the final but throughout the whole knockout round. Atletico Madrid certainly agreed and signed her right after the tournament. This means she’ll be teaming up with Spain’s #1 keeper Lola Gallardo which is all kinds of interesting for the next domestic season.
Now FIFA doesn’t award a Silver Glove or Bronze glove–why the hell not?!–but I’d give them to Hedvig Lindahl (SWE) and Christiane Endler (CHL) respectively.
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FIFA Young Player: Giulia Gwinn GER
What a great belated birthday present for midfielder Gwinn! She played all of Germany’s five matches, racking up 8 goal attempts and covering 54.6km. She scored Germany’s only goal in their win over China and won the Player of the Match award. Beyond this, Gwinn is also another member of the “no makeup no play” brigade. 😉
FIFA Fair Play Award: France
This award is given to the team with the best fair play record in the tournament who also qualified for the knockout stage. Basically, which ever team is considered to be the most sportswoman-like wins the award. Whatever that means.
Hyundai Goal of the Tournament
I’m always curious how people conceive of what constitutes a “best” goal. Christiane’s was pretty good but not my choice. Can you guess which one I voted for? ☺️
Here were the other nominees:
And to round out all this award celebrating –
Twitter apparently was tracking everyone’s tweets during the tournament as part of their #GoldenTweet Awards. Yeah, I don’t know. They recently announced the award winners and while they say they did it globally only eleven countries are represented?
I’m confused how they did this in terms of country selection, and equally confused as to why they basically awarded the same categories within each country. Ahh, whatever.
– Teri
Of Headbands and Heartbreak... 
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