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If only the men played like the women

Roar Guru
13th June, 2015
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Australian midfielder Emily Van Egmond (R) and USA midfielder Carli Lloyd vie for the ball during the Group D match of the 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup between the US and Australia at the Winnipeg Stadium on June 8, 2015, in Winnipeg, Manitoba. AFP PHOTO/JEWEL SAMAD
Roar Guru
13th June, 2015
87
1916 Reads

The tackles are strong. The skill level is exceptional. It’s fast paced, precise and high intensity stuff.

The games are tough, nay, they are rough. They are absolutely thrilling.

Some would say these things to describe the EPL, La Liga, The Bundesliga, maybe even Serie A. Certainly they were descriptions made of the recent World Cup in Brazil.

The World Cup currently taking place in Canada is leaving all other forms of football in its wake.

Being played in front of packed crowds, the matches have been something to behold. The attacking play has been refreshing, the skill levels have been off the charts, and the pace certainly seems to have picked up from its predecessor in Germany four years ago.

The players have shown respect: both to their opponents and officials.

To watch sport played in a way where the remonstrating with the referees is nothing more than a shake of the head or the waving of a finger has been almost shocking.

The singular aspect of the World Cup that has separated this type of football from all others on the planet is the diving. To be sure, there has been none of it.

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For people who have followed me, they know my thoughts on the topic. Until Sepp Blatter and his cohort became embroiled in bribery allegations, diving was the greatest blight on the world game.

You need look no further than the antics of one Luis Suarez in the Champions League final recently, rolling around like his legs had been hacked off and jumping to attention after an appropriate amount of time had been delayed.

So far, no one has been bitten either.

You watch the players representing USA and Sweden going at each other at 100 miles per hour, colliding in full blooded challenges, not only do they just keep playing, they bound up and almost assist the other onto their feet to get on with the game.

The game is being played hard but fair.

The ability to get up and brush yourself off is the new badge of honour, as opposed to rolling around like an idiot trying to feign injury and deceive the referee.

There is almost a sense that the players at this World Cup have something to prove, and thus have determined to showcase the skill, speed, strength and brutality of football at its finest.

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Of course these players have something to prove.

The skills produced by the men’s game are lauded all over the world with 90,000+ crowds, billion dollar broadcast deals and enough sponsorship dollars to fund a small nation, whereas the players in Canada are forged from a tradition where their predecessors had to clean toilets and pick up rubbish during men’s games just to fund tours.

At a tournament where the inequity cannot be better highlighted of a capitalist model that has streamlined funds into only one half of the game along the lines of gender, the players on display in Vancouver, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Ottawa, Montreal and Moncton are in fact showing the way.

The game is truly being played as it should be: to score goals, with fair play, respect and athleticism, as opposed to bravado, gamesmanship, petulance and cheating.

The men’s game could learn a lesson or two. From all appearances, it would seem that to be told you ‘play like a girl’ should now be considered a great compliment.

I would imagine that the best insult you could throw at an opponent in this World Cup is that you ‘play like a boy’, though from the sportsmanship displayed, you would question the need to devolve to antics requiring verbal abuse.

As the players in Canada play out the remainder of the Women’s World Cup, at this rate, the quality of this tournament will shortly place it as the pinnacle of what football has to offer, and rightly be called simply, ‘The World Cup’.

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