Phillip Ellis
So the Women’s World Cup Final will be between the holders U.S.A. V European Champions Holland. My team England were beaten by serial winners the U.S.A., by 2 goals to 1 in the semi-final with an 11 million TV audience on the free to air BBC. Admittedly there was nothing else to watch and regular soap operas were moved for the big games so had no choice but to get a great audience. Some female people in the media and in the game are getting carried away and this is a new dawn for women’s professional soccer in England but the truth is the Women’s Super League matches average less than 1000 crowds and don’t make any money, tickets as low as £2 pounds.
The standard of women’s football is not great, maybe that of 9th tear in English men’s football. The goalkeepers are too small but defend regulation sized goals, meaning they can’t reach some shots. It makes them look bad. But if the men says reduce the size of the goals the women cry sexism. The women also lack the power of the men and goals often come from goalkeeping mistakes. I will say the goalies have improved dramatically of late. They were terrible ten years ago.
The tournament has been OK and I have watched all the England games and some of the Brazil, France and American games. The America girls are the sexiest by far. The most controversial game was Cameroon v England where the Africans were violent on the pitch, didn’t know the rules and spat on one of our players. The Africans nearly walked off the pitch when two offside’s went against them on VAR. But they did not know the passive offside rules. The Chinese referee just gave up giving decisions against them in case they walked off.
Attendances were OK for the group games of around a 10,000 average in France and picked up to sell out for the big matches. Male sports journalists seem to make a point of small crowds but did we expect anything else? Tickets were cheap and only raised for the quarter finals and onward’s for category 1 games. Some World Cup Final cheap seat tickets for Sunday were only £20! The most expensive final ticket was £73. You want to fill the grounds and get young girls interested and so £8 for a group game was great value.
Women’s soccer is big in the USA and they should be paid more than their average men’s team but we are a long way off that. In fact the game is only going professional for political correct reasons here rather than the talent. Like with most women’s sports, the girls that look good in bikinis’ make the most money. Women professional sport is contradictory in the way it surrenders to sexism to make money yet uses equality to say they should get equal pay.
The thing I like most about women’s soccer is they don’t dive and cheat so much and only go down with injuries when they are hurt. Their passing skills need work though and their general sense of play. Let’s hope the standard has risen again for four years from now.
I’ve watched all the matches that were aired in my country. Yes, it was Jamaica’s first time and yeah, we went out… but at least we were there.
The USA and England should have played in the Finals. The Sweden / Netherlands game was more a keeper’s test than a striker’s accomplishment.
The USA Women’s team does play better than the men, and as you observed, the women are stronger and more courages, as they don’t dive and do the Butterkrotches roll as Neymar.