Post by Max on Sept 30, 2020 17:31:14 GMT
I enjoyed watching the FIFA women’s world cup of summer 2019, I was seriously impressed with many aspects.
I’ll get the one negative out of the way straight away which is that there was talk before the tournament of having bigger goals, which I didn’t think was the right way to go, but I think playing on the full size pitch is detrimental to their game ….reduce it by 20% I say. It is no different to having women do the 7 event heptathlon as opposed to 10 in the decathlon…or 3 sets as opposed to 5 in tennis, or the sprint hurdles being 10 meters less.
Since childhood we have all played soccer and watched the men’s game on TV so millions of people have decades of programmed brain memory of how quickly players can run the pitch length, how far the goalie can kick the ball out, how fast the ball travels when passed, hit hard towards goals or when a cross is whipped in. From that perspective there is always going to be that difference that we naturally will compare automatically when watching.
Every other element of the world cup tournament I absolutely loved! Have to confess prior to the tournament it had been quite a few years since I had taken the time to watch a women’s game of soccer. Perhaps Phil Neville’s involvement brought me to it, with the heavy media build-up of the England squad added interest and got me more invested. Perhaps the ‘girl power’ or ‘female empowerment’ campaign for equality that the North American team were fighting for got me wondering too and I needed to compare. Certainly the exploits of Megan Rapinoe and Alex Morgan made a very strong point that they deserve at least equality compared to their US men’s team, no doubt. They have been to 8 world cups, won 4 of them and never finished lower than 3rd. The US women are different league to their men!
Pitch size aside I thought that the quality of play and players was a massive surprise, the talent was often amazing, the skill level was impressive and some of the goals scored were often every bit as entertaining and brilliant as the men’s game in my book.
Other aspects of the tournament that left a long impression was the quality and professionalism of the female referees/lineswoman…..don’t see any reason why they can’t be used for the men’s game, let’s be honest they won’t do any worse!
Furthermore the crowd atmosphere was far more positive, the rival fans mixed together without any trouble and perhaps the biggest pleasure was they got on and played the game without feigning injury trying to get rival players booked or sent off and there was very little time wasted falling over and rolling around when hardly any contact.
I hope it isn’t every 4 years it gets heavy publicity because it showed its potential and fans had an appetite for more.
I’ll get the one negative out of the way straight away which is that there was talk before the tournament of having bigger goals, which I didn’t think was the right way to go, but I think playing on the full size pitch is detrimental to their game ….reduce it by 20% I say. It is no different to having women do the 7 event heptathlon as opposed to 10 in the decathlon…or 3 sets as opposed to 5 in tennis, or the sprint hurdles being 10 meters less.
Since childhood we have all played soccer and watched the men’s game on TV so millions of people have decades of programmed brain memory of how quickly players can run the pitch length, how far the goalie can kick the ball out, how fast the ball travels when passed, hit hard towards goals or when a cross is whipped in. From that perspective there is always going to be that difference that we naturally will compare automatically when watching.
Every other element of the world cup tournament I absolutely loved! Have to confess prior to the tournament it had been quite a few years since I had taken the time to watch a women’s game of soccer. Perhaps Phil Neville’s involvement brought me to it, with the heavy media build-up of the England squad added interest and got me more invested. Perhaps the ‘girl power’ or ‘female empowerment’ campaign for equality that the North American team were fighting for got me wondering too and I needed to compare. Certainly the exploits of Megan Rapinoe and Alex Morgan made a very strong point that they deserve at least equality compared to their US men’s team, no doubt. They have been to 8 world cups, won 4 of them and never finished lower than 3rd. The US women are different league to their men!
Pitch size aside I thought that the quality of play and players was a massive surprise, the talent was often amazing, the skill level was impressive and some of the goals scored were often every bit as entertaining and brilliant as the men’s game in my book.
Other aspects of the tournament that left a long impression was the quality and professionalism of the female referees/lineswoman…..don’t see any reason why they can’t be used for the men’s game, let’s be honest they won’t do any worse!
Furthermore the crowd atmosphere was far more positive, the rival fans mixed together without any trouble and perhaps the biggest pleasure was they got on and played the game without feigning injury trying to get rival players booked or sent off and there was very little time wasted falling over and rolling around when hardly any contact.
I hope it isn’t every 4 years it gets heavy publicity because it showed its potential and fans had an appetite for more.