What about the women's world cup?!

I've not been into football for years but this has made me want to start watching. Just been getting myself clued up properly on the offside rule.

There were some comments on Twitter comparing the total number of goals scored by US women’s team vs US men’s team. Which made me wonder if women’s soccer is supported precisely because men’s soccer isn’t a big thing in the US...

The difference in the quality of the opposition may be a factor.

Sahkerr was widely derided and defamed in the US as a "girls' game" in the mistaken belief it was a non-contact sport.

These days the MLS is improving leaps and bounds, with a career path open to poor black and latinos and not just the tall blonde college kids.

The US womens rugby team are also good.

And I think the Brazilian defenders knew Kerr was there, otherwise they wouldn't feel the need to defend that ball in.

Luckily I didn't decide

IMO she was offside and interferring with play, no goal.

I think the goal should have stood, because the woman who scored the OG wasn't impeded or hindered by the Australian player. She hadn't even seen her, so to me it wasn't an offside incident, because she didn't hinder play.

Any thoughts on the offside / VAR decision in the Australia Brazil game?

Beachcomber What was it like in the stadium? (and was there any facepaint involved for the DDs)

I've only ever been to men's football matches with loads of blokes so I was just wondering if/how different the atmosphere was?

I went to the Scotland / England game in Nice with my daughters. It was great. We are supporting France (we live here) and Scotland (where I'm from).

Please support the women. They are amazing and it's certainly I game I prefer enormously over men's football which I don't have any interest in.

We watched the France / Norway match on telly last night and there was some excellent football.

There were some comments on Twitter comparing the total number of goals scored by US women’s team vs US men’s team. Which made me wonder if women’s soccer is supported precisely because men’s soccer isn’t a big thing in the US so there’s no sense that they are competing for audiences.

England beat the USA in the USA in their last match.

The good Asian teams are the Japanese and South Koreans who run and run and run until their opponents drop.

The Thais come from the tropics where it is so hot and humid the game is played at a stroll.

A ridiculous mismatch.

USA is always one of the favourites, they are just very good with a huge pool of players to choose from. Other countries are closing in but Thailand is not there yet.

I didn't enjoy watching that after those 4 quick fire goals at the start of the second half and knowing it would go into double numbers. I don't like it on youth level and I guess I like it even less on international level.
Saying that, they were good goals

World rankings:
1 America
2 Germany
3 England
4 France

Going by the men being the home nation is an advantage though.

That was cruel!

I thought the French were favourites.

DoctorTwo Agreed, but don't forget that the USA are the favourites and Thailand are, perhaps, the weakest team in the competition.

But, yes, USA are definitely the team that everyone seems to be looking out for.

I'm watching USA v Thailand and blimey, the Americans are scarily good.

Glad to see my country, the Dutch lionesses, score the winner in extra time.

needmoresleep that is a real worry indeed, especially as some countries already do this (Iran if I remember correctly)

From the BBC article

Ballon d'Or winner Ada Hegerberg is not in the Norwegian squad after stepping away from international football in 2017 over gender equality issues

Its sex, not gender.

And this is important. If pay in women's football grows, and self ID allowed, there will be huge temptation for young men from some of the very poorest areas in the world to seek to earn the income that would lif their families out of poverty, but switching to the women's game. Womens football would be over before it started.

And perhaps the BBC ought to look at what it is paying its commentators, compared with what it paid for the men's world cup.

Bbc piece on the pay gap at the World Cup
www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-48530498

Oh, and well done CountFosco's DH.

As for the women's game being cleaner... well, I'll be interested to see how Brazil play against tougher opposition. They've tended to be a very physical and on occasions bloody dirty team (they practically chopped Germany off the park in the 2007 world cup, and I saw them live, playing against Japan in the 2012 Olympics - Japan eventually won, but there were some very dubious challenges went in duringhte game).

Those are interesting articles, HiHo. Smaller goals used to be floated as an idea back when I was playing Sunday league over a decade ago, as a way of stopping the 8-0, 10-0 score lines you used to get quite a lot. The idea was that the huge scores were down to the keepers' size.

But actually as the overall standard of women's football has gone up, and the pool of talent has got larger, so that within any given league teams are more evenly matched and the standard of defending is higher, those huge cricket score results seem to have dropped off, so I think Bardsley and Solo are right on this one.

As does Hope Solo
www.joe.co.uk/sport/hope-solo-women-goal-size-234352

Re goal size, Karen Bardsley makes a good point about equality in this article www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2019/05/29/reducing-size-womens-goals-would-not-help-fight-equality-says/

I saw in one of those articles posted upthread the point was made that because women's football is so badly paid it really is about the purity and love of the game. These women have given up so much to get where they are, they won't piss it away with a penalty tantrum the way an overpaid indulged male superstar would.

It is not that the women play nicer it is more that they don't play act when fouled.

The goal size debate is interesting, I guess a smaller goal would also mean a smaller pitch which could help the pace of the game. I will have to read up on that a bit.

There is a problem with the full-size (Men's) goals; 24 feet wide and 8 feet high.

England's former keeper Rachel Brown was 5ft 6in, and lost her place to Karen Bardsley (6ft) largely on inches alone.

And just to prove the claim that the girls don't cheat and always play nice is not necessarily true, here is Brown getting sent off, the innocent victim of the infamous Ramona Bachmann of Switzerland: