With the medal round of the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup still to come, the tournament has already been a rousing success, at least as far as Peter Montopoli is concerned.

The CEO of the national organizing committee and general secretary of Canada Soccer was in Ottawa for Friday night’s quarterfinal, the last game of the tournament held at Lansdowne Stadium. Montopoli lives in Ottawa and said he was saving the best for last.

Though he was unlikely to say anything different to an Ottawa reporter, Montopoli was nothing but genuine when talking about the tournament’s overall impact on Canadian soccer and Ottawa’s success as one of six official host cities.

It’s a success story, he said, that encompasses everything from Canada’s performance on the pitch — advancing past the group stage to meet England in the quarterfinals — and off the pitch, where record in-person crowds and TV audiences have made the tournament a win even if Canada were to bow out in its next game.

“Ottawa has been leading the charge in terms of stability, just day in, day out great organization and we’ve seen it with the (number) of spectators here,” Montopoli told the Sun.

When all is said and done, he said, Ottawa would be near, if not at the top of all six host cities in terms of the percentage of tickets sold. Even without Canada playing a single game in the nation’s capital and a couple less-than-ideal 4 p.m. weekday starts, Lansdowne was mostly packed for the group stage and round of 16 matches and was full for Friday’s quarterfinal.

“The people here want to be part of something that’s truly large,” Montopoli said. “Ottawa should be applauded.”

Pitch bits

The German powerhouse is moving on to the semifinals after knocking off France in penalty kicks (5-4 after a 1-1 draw through 120 minutes) Friday. The loss was a tough break for the French, who scored first and looked poised to knock off the favoured Germans before France was called for a handball in the box, leading to the penalty kick on which Celia Sasic tied the game for the world’s top-ranked women’s team. France was the better side for the balance of the match but Germany found a way to hang around and the French missed opportunities to put them out of their misery. Germany will move on to play the Americans in the semifinals ... Estimates on the number of U.S. fans at the game in Ottawa ranged from about half to closer to 75% of the sold out crowd at Lansdowne. By halftime, it certainly seemed closer to the higher end of that ... The U.S. put on a clinic in just about everything except scoring in the first half. The Americans made China run around, they picked off easy passes and came close to finding the back of the net a couple times. Still, it was hard to imagine China being able to keep up that pace for long ... U.S. coach Jill Ellis left a bit of a question mark as to whether aging star Abby Wambach would start the quarterfinal or come off the bench as a substitute — the latter turned out to be the pick. Midfielder Carli Lloyd wore the captain’s armband to start the game. Not featuring at all in this one, were midfielders Lauren Holiday and Megan Rapinoe, both of whom were suspended for the quarterfinal after picking up a pair of yellow cards each in the lead up to Friday’s match. While Holiday hasn’t had a great tournament, Rapinoe was missed ... The U.S. had its first chance of the game before the two-minute mark as forward Amy Rodriguez was sent in alone on Chinese keeper Fei Wang. But with apparently way too much time to think about her shot, Rodriguez hooked the ball well high and very wide of the target.

Here and there

The cheer for the American team and the ensuing chants of “USA! USA! USA” was the loudest cheer of any kind heard during the Ottawa portion of this tournament. There was also the largest ratio of star spangled top hats to people ... Friday’s game had many media fingers crossed that if the Americans should win, either goalkeeper Hope Solo or Wambach would be named player of the game, if for no other reason than to force them to a podium and, you know, actually speak to the press ... One of the big Women’s World Cup mysteries has been solved. Yes, the blue Powerade at each pre- and post-game press conference has to be blue. Both it and the water bottle next to it also have to be room temperature, so the liquids don’t sweat on camera. I’m not kidding ... Chinese captain Haiyan Woo said Thursday she had only seen replays of her country’s loss to the U.S. in the 1999 finals but hadn’t watched it live. May have something do with the fact she was six at the time.

Twitter: @chrishofley