Women's World Cup

You're basing your whole opinion on a sport on two poor halves of football, it would have been interesting if you'd have the same opinion if you'd have watched Sweden - Nigeria or Ivory Coast - Thailand. Christ, if I formulated my opinion of football from the first 2/3 games I'd seen I'd be nowhere near this forum now (I didn't see a goal for the first 5 matches I attended). I know women's football isn't for everyone but to call it "utter rubbish" after watching it for a hour and half is hilarious. Going down the physicality route is a lazy one as well, the women's game is certainly more tactile, less smashing the ball into the channels, more ball retention, more beating the player. As I've said in previous posts comparing it to the men's game is pointless, sure it's on the same pitch with the same rules but it's like comparing the 100 metres to the 1,500 metres. As for changing the size of the pitch and goals etc, that just makes it more difficult for girls to take up the game. There's plenty of full size pitches around with goal posts and if the game was played on a smaller pitch girls wouldn't be able to play, there wouldn't be the facilities. Domestically it's worth remembering the league was set up only five years ago, the football league 128 years ago. The game will develop, it will get better and it is growing in attendance numbers.

OK.

Will watch a couple more games, and will gladly admit if I've been hasty in condeming the standard.

But can't really see that the girls will get technically or tactically better. You can always see a player with ability, it's just there, sometimes hard to explain, it's about balance, control, power, awareness, all of that was missing in the 2 halves I watched.

Good point about the pitch sizes.

I don't understand the need to get worked about this either.

Women's football is one of the fastest growing sports on the planet and one of the fastest growing spectator sports in this country.  Not everyone has to like it but there's evidence that a growing number of people do. 

What I don't understand is this constant need to compare in that sense.  It's like something never has any intrinsic value in itself - only in relation to something else.  I have to put up with this in cricket all the time.  'Why bother going to County Cricket when it's lower standard and less exciting than Test Cricket?' Well, because I bloody well like County Cricket is why and my liking of it has very little to do with the fact I like international cricket.  They're different and they both have their pluses and minuses.  I can like a massive rock concert involving high quality international musicians and yet I can also enjoy an open mike night at the pub.  No one would say 'why bother going to watch that crap in the pub when you could go to Glastonbury' etc.

It is daft to say that the primary reason women's football isn't worth bothering with is that it's not as good as men's football.  If that's the starting point of judgement then clearly you'll have no chance of liking it, just as if I go to Mcdonald's and set my expectations for what's acceptable against a prime steak I once had in Michelen starred restaurant I'm unlikely to enjoy the experience very much.

I think women's football is OK.  I don't watch that much of it but I'll watch if it's on.  I like the competitive aspect of this World Cup.  It's nice to watch a tournament in which there's genuine doubt over who the top teams actually are.  That's a benefit of the fact that it is still a developing sport.  Nowadays in most sports you can do up a rankings list before the start of competition and, bar the odd occasional shock, that's highly likely to be how they finish.  Not to mention that the globalisation of sport has produced a certain uniformity in tactics and style.  In women's football that hasn't happened yet so it's quite fun to watch teams adapt to each other - there's still a sense of things being a bit more 'up for grabs' rather than I think the hierarchy of expectations kind of crushes a lot of that from the word go in many tournaments. Makes a pleasing change from the hyper-professionalism and systemised coaching that has taken over World Sport.

I just think in the case of women's football it's a strange way of looking at it which kind of prejudices your chance of liking it from the start.  I watch quite a lot of 3rd team standard cricket and I don't stand around going 'you're all s**t - that 55 year old over there will never be as good a batsman as Kumar Sangakarra he should give it up or that youngster's just bowled 5 wides in a row, what a load of rubbish' etc.  Instead it can be oddly compelling watching.  Seeing someone battle against the dying of the light or a young player trying to overcome nerves etc.  There's a still contest going on and everybody out there is trying their damndest and it can create some really odd and fun dynamics to watch.  When I go to watch Test Cricket it's fantastic to watch brilliant sportsman at the top of their game but I can't relate to it because they do things that I simply could never do.  I don't feel I could possibly understand what's going through their minds or the pressures involved.  When I watch the 3rd team I can relate to them - I know exactly what is going through their minds even if I don't know them.  That was me once and hopefully will be me again (probably sooner than I think if I keep playing like I have done this season).  The point is there's loads of ways to appreciate watching sport -  'I want to watch the best and if it's not then it isn't bothering with' seems a bit limited to me. 

It's interesting about competing on an equal level.  It's obviously extremely unlikely that women would be able to compete with men in football but it's also not right to say that women's football has reached some kind of plateau.  I think anyone who has watched any women's football over the last decade would have seen an incredible advance in the fitness, tactics, technical ability, physicality etc of the players.  That's also something that's quite fun to watch.  It is a sport that's slowly professionalising (to some extent) so it's interesting to watch leaps forward which you don't get so much in sports that have already gone through that stage.

1. In the hope that it may get better.

2. Maybe I like to watch men, if you get my drift?

I know it was just hype to get people to tune in, but leading up to the tournement, the advertising wasn't exactly modest about what these girls were capable of. The reality is somewhat different, the quality isn't great.

Then there was that newspaper piece by Oliver somebody saying that the standard was about the same as male Conference, total twaddle, Rovers, or even Alfreton, would utterly annihilate all of these girls' teams.

It is what it is, enjoy it, ignore it, it's not exactly life changing for any of us.

Going back to your comment about PL football, whilst the top teams are technically superb, I don't buy into this thing about the pace of the game being ultra-fast, it's often like international football (not surprising as a lot of the players are internationals) and is more like a chess match than the blood and thunder you get in L2 or the Conference.

Not realy sure what point you are trying to make?

I don't know if any of the girls shown at the WC are full time, but the standard was mostly pitiful.

The only thing that was good about it was that it's a more honest game with much less feigning injury and trying to con referees, apart from that, watching grass grow was more entertaining.

The numpty commentator didn't help, ''ahh tonighhhs macch we will see two teams taking free kiihs from all over the piich'' ''England have Basseeeh in goal and people with maaa tickees can counnn themselves lucky''. Couldn't they at least find someone who can pronounce words correctly? And as for the summeriser, jeez, either she's a moron or she thinks the audience are.

Apart from that, I loved every second of it.