Women’s Football: Glass Half Empty / Half Full Attitudes

By: Jan | September 11th, 2007

Opening Ceremony When it comes to women’s football, I’m on the level of an eight year old child. To be more precise, like when I was eight years old following the men’s national team. At that age I was only watching the big tournaments - the European Championship and the World Cup. I knew little about the players in Germany’s squad and even less about the other teams. I just wanted my team to win. And that’s also the case for this months FIFA Women’s World Cup in China.

Thus I’m really pleased with Germany’s emphatic 11-0 thrashing of Argentina. Inara already blogged about this yesterday and also hinted at the FIFA website, where you can watch live streams and match highlights. At least Windows users can do so. I couldn’t get this pile of crapcoded website junk to run on my Mac.

The result of the match can provoke mixed reactions. For some the obvious gulf in class might have been the perfect example of how underdeveloped women’s football still is on a global scale, and that this match damaged the reputation of the sport. The much hated FIFA godfather Sepp Blatter had similar thoughts. So maybe it’s been a good thing that today’s three matches all ended with levelled scores. You can’t ask for more competitive balance. Anyway, the German press was actually very positive about the performance of their team. They didn’t fail to point out all that was bad about Argentina, and they were amazed how this team could have beaten Brazil and be South American champions, but the delight at the glimpse of what the German team can do outweighed their reservations.

In the end, if your stereotypical American sports lover needs to bash soccer, he might point his fingers at a dive, a dire 0-0 draw and some hooliganism and see his negative preconceptions about football confirmed. In the same way you can point your fingers at the areas where the women’s game still needs to improve and use it to discredit women’s football as a whole. And I don’t just mean a German team putting 11 past a helpless Argentinian side. It also includes the athleticism, tactical finesse or the speed of their game, which are common points of criticism.

Now, I haven’t seen enough women’s football to argue much here, but what I saw of the Germany match was actually quite promising. Comparisons to the slower brand of football played in the 1970s, which are sometimes used, definitely don’t hold up well. In the end the whole tactical approach by the German team was a modern attacking style and the speed of the game was higher than what I’ve seen from a couple of classic 70s matches.

So, you can look at all this from a more positive angle and focus on the football the best teams have to offer instead, and take that as a promise for the potential of the sport as a whole.

To get back to the beginning of the post: in case of men’s football my affection for the game eventually lead to the next level, where I would pick a Bundesliga club and follow its ups and downs through the years. This won’t happen after this years World Cup, whether Germany wins it or not. There is still a lot of work to be done, before the women’s Bundesliga is a mainstream ready product. But that’s a topic for a separate post.