AIBU to say men who believe this are sexist pricks

I agree with pretty much everything you've said there.
You've explained the reason for the skill difference very eloquently.

So its nor so much a skills issue as consistency of skill level?

But even then the top male strikers runs rings around the top male defenders. not because they are more skilful but because a defender needs a different set of skills to a striker.

There is also the issue of the 80 ish yr gap in which women were not allowed to play professional football.

Link that to the difference in player pools, there are many more boys that want to be footballers than there are girls.
Even now a lot of clubs are only just putting together a youth female side.
And non of this means that at top level men should play against women as there will always be differences.

What I am hoping is that the women's game doesn't go down the route of the male game where they fall over every-time they get anywhere near the box. But looking at Italy and Spain play I don't hold out much hope.

Also the refereeing has to improve. and don't get me started of VAR and the automated offside.

Okay just watched the video.
A very clever representation. The skills on display, there are incredibly high there is no doubt about that whatsoever.

I don't think that level of skill matches the men. One thing that did occur to me watching that video is, in many cases, the defence was incredibly low in skill and that did make the attacking team seem better than they really are.

Sorry. Video won't play.

Until you can prove otherwise, I stand by my statement that the men's international football team is more skilled than the women's international football team.

Try that again

Perception is everything

8

Skill is not subjective.

It isn't an insult. It's just pointing out that, however much you declare it isn't so, skill is subjective.

And of course men's football gets more viewers. It's had literally billions thrown at over the last 50 years. It will probably always get more viewers than womens football. I'm not sure why that's relevant.

Sorry, but that's just a cheap shot with no basis. If you'd like to discuss, i'm very happy too, but just threaten insults like that is just really poor.

Boyfriend isn't a huge football fan, but will watch the odd game. However he'll never watch England play live - men's or women's - as every time he does, they seem to lose. So he'll find out the score and watch it later. He's a huge sci-fi fan and goes out of his way to be non sexist barring the odd bad joke.
I was busy catching up with a report for work, so only kept half an eye on the screen while it was on.

Denying 'your' reality, that should read.

Ok.

Posted twice.

A lightweight boxing is as skillful as a heavyweight. There is just a difference in strength.

But the best women's footballers are just not as skillful as men. It might hurt to say that but denying reality isn't helpful.

The majority of women prefer to watch men's football because of this.

And there are plenty of us who prefer the women’s game to the men’s for a variety of reasons. They’re different games and the lionesses are awesome!

I have a football mad father, brother and now husband. I’ve watched a lot of men’s football (I quite like it but not mad for it). I don’t know if any of the people who say ‘drunk lads in the park can beat the women’s team’ have actually watched any men’s football - quite a lot of that is shit, too!

It is a different game to the men’s game, but it can be fun too. I was invested in this euros and I’m glad the lionesses won!

I love football, and watch the men's game religiously-but as much as it pains me to say it, the women's game is very far behind in quality and is just not as enjoyable to watch. It will take a long time for it to improve to gain anywhere near parity in following/pay/sponsorship/quality. I wish it wasn't true, and feels almost disloyal to say it, but if I am essentially giving something my undivided attention for a minimum of 90 minutes, I want to enjoy it.

I also think there is a reluctance to critique performances to the same level of the men's game-no one has a problem trashing the men's national team if they perform badly, but if the women's team is criticised, it is labelled as sexist/misogynistic. Which sometimes I accept may be the case, but it is allowed to call a bad performance just that, whether it is the men's or women's.

Why is it hard to avoid? It's shown on two TV channels, maximum.

@JHound ,

But it doesn’t really work as an analogy. Lightweight boxers are actually quicker than heavyweights and outperform them in many skill measures (punches per second, movement quality etc).

That isn’t really true for women’s football. The Swiss national team recently got beaten 7-1 by a boy’s under 15 team. I doubt the under 15s are significantly heavier and stronger than the women.

Here is an actual paper analysing the differences. Of course a lot of it is down to size and speed, but things like passing accuracy is actually better in the men, and over longer distances.

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8336886/

The boxing analogy is so perfectly spot on.

It is very easy to avoid.

It's really easy to avoid, unless a national team wins a big international title.

It's the amount of attention kicking a ball gets that annoys me, that and how hard it is to avoid!

I think there's a huge amount of love for gymnastics isn't there? Granted, I didn't like the make up plastered faux sophistication for 6 year olds which is my local gymnastics club, so never encouraged my dds to do it, but one of them loved watching the Olympics gymnastics. Simone Biles is a megastar. Not a team sport so not really comparable to football, but love for one sport doesn't preclude love for another.

I wish there was as much love for gymnastics, now that IS talent.