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The Women’s Football World Cup that just finished was a significant milestone in Women’s Football. If there was any doubt, it confirmed that the only different between Women and Men’s football is the biological derived speed, power and size of the player and is we know, by watching Messi, football is not all about size and power.
I usually spend my summers trying to get as away from the money-fuelled business of football as I can. I hate the silly season. I remove all my Football news feeds and don’t read any sports page. Any new I know is accidental. One thing I have learned over the past couple years is that the stress and speculation are a waste of energy. When competitive games start, then I start paying attention again. This year is the first year I have managed to completely switch off the silly season.
But I love football so I am usually in Gothenburg, Sweden at this time watching my favourite Football tournament – The Gothia Cup. The Gothia Cup is the largest football tournament in the world in terms of participants. 35 200 players are taking part this year (1567 teams) with an average age of 15.5 and 29% of them are girls. At least 80% of all boys’ games are played by teams from different countries. The girl’s tournament consist of more countries this year and is better quality than ever. This year 71 countries are taking part and the spectator numbers are about 250000 so far. Incredibly, the organisers manage to do this every year since 1975!
Unfortunately, I could not be in Gothenburg this year but the growing importance and appreciation for the Gothia Cup meant that I could watch it live on TV. A big sports Channel is covering the games for the first time and some games are live on the Gothia Cup site. It is the perfect antidote to the ego and money fuelled game that we endure (and enjoy) starting in August. And of course, sometime, you spot a player that you know immediately will be a star in the future. Andreas Pirlo, Xabi Alonso, Ze Roberto have all played there. The Bolivian team in the 1994 world cup had 8 players who were part of the Gothia Cup in 1984. Over the past few years, I have been more interested in watching the girls and I am sure many of them will be turning up on the world stage in a couple of years – at least 4 were at the years World Cup.
Unfortunately I could not watch all games of the Women’s Fifa World Cup but the ones I watched were seriously impressive. Many people who have not been following the women’s game will be shocked to see how good the quality was this year. There seemed to have been an off-the-chart jump in quality both the technical quality of the players and of the game over the past 4 years.
Sweden v USA was one of my favourite games. This game was better than many Championship games I have seen and I dare say some bottom of the league games in the premiership. The biggest developments are in the players technical quality and good managers that have exploited the growth in players.
We are seeing a generation of girls who grew up wanting to play football and were given nearly about the same chance as boys in the quality of training from an earlier age than was available to group before them. It is therefore no surprise that they can execute to about the same quality. With the increase in individual quality of player, coaches can present really exciting and tactical games. From the Swedes and American who are strong athletes pressing and counter-attacking to the Japanese focusing on short passing and possession. The Japanese won the competition with a significant height disadvantage to the rest of the team. Their keeper could barely jump high enough to reach the bar.
Watching the drama-packed final between Japan and the USA, I noted that the first foul did not occur until 10 mins into the game and the next one after 20mins. And nobody shouted at the referee in any game I saw apart from the American goalkeeper, Hope Solo, who was required to stand for a penalty to be re-taken after she had save the initial penalty. Though she was right to be upset, she did her protests from a good distance.
Of course, the fewer fouls, the few opportunities there are to complain to the ref and the fewer fouls may be as a result of less speed and power in the women’s game. By sheer biology, women cannot run as fast as men, are built less strong and therefore there are fewer high speed close contact on the ball. I must admit one of the things that I used find boring with women’s football was that the pitch almost seemed too big and underused. Now the play is cleverer and faster, more technical and thoroughly enjoyable.
There are many female players now with better technical qualities than players in the premiership. Sweden’s Schelin or Japan’s Sawa or USA’s Wombach are all technically superior to Adebayor. Sorry Ade but if these ladies were as tall, fast and strong as you are, they would keep you out the team. Since we also know that many great players are not the strongest, tallest or fastest, it would be interesting if premiership teams were allowed 2 slots for a female player if they wanted to use it. I would like to see that out of curiosity although I cannot really say what the point of it would be since what is better would be to have a thriving women’s game.
Small details in this world cup made it a milestone. The respect that the women’s game deserves is now being accorded. They are not dressed in men’s shirts, their jerseys are made for women, their boots too, the referees are all women, and the games were live on major networks with Chancellor and Fifa & UEFA Presidents present at the final. These things may be small (the jerseys and boots) but they are part of respecting the women’s game and its players.
For all Blatter’s faults he has done two great things that many Western centric Presidents would not have done. Blatter has used Fifa to bring football to under-developed parts of the world and supported the growth of the women’s game. Blatter has spent millions in football in the third world and was a key figure in taking the world cup to Africa and now controversially to Russia and the Middle East. That is why Blatter is well supported in FIFA. Blatter may have made unfortunate comments about women’s attire when playing but he has supported the women’s game more than the many associations who rightly criticised his comments as sexist. Blatter has kept football the number one game in the world by investing in growing it around the world and including girls in that growth.
Looking into the future, we need more professional female leagues. I hear the FA has decided to make some improvements in England. Sweden and USA have really benefited from good leagues. Secondly so far, female football is middle class in many countries. It requires parents taking their kids to practice in nice neighbourhoods with facilities and coaches. If you look at what ghettos, disadvantaged areas and the third world has provided men’s football from Maradona to Wayne Rooney, you realise that there is more to come for women’s football. Black girls and poorer girls in Europe, US and South America have not really yet discovered football. I am sure there is a Messi, Zidane or Rooney out there now aged 5 years and she is just waiting to be given the right opportunity and training.
Lastly, scouting and development networks for female players are not really strong – there are too few leagues to drive the demand. So even though we have seen the great improvement that came about from the ladies playing now because they started earlier, there is room for more girls to start even earlier, like the boys. When that happens, the quality is going to improve even more – in fact it will be the same apart from the power and speed.
Women have been playing competitive football since 1917. There is more to come and this year provided an exciting glimpse into the future. Watching 15 year old girls at the Gothia Cup, you can’t help but notice that they started even earlier with proper coaching than those we saw at the world cup and that there are already some exciting prospects. I am on the look out now for the Women’s team I will support in the future.
