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.
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.
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’.
nordster
Guest
Pfft, hardly i base my comments around an issue....your last ones are just ad hominem and psychologising....
SVB
Guest
A world where others get to break others down is the very thing you've been championing on this site. Look at the majority of your responses on this thread. Spare me the lecture.
Steve
Guest
Shhhhhh....you are going against the narrative here mate
nordster
Guest
People like u try to break other people down with comments like that all the time. That says it all ...so feel free to stand by them and believe whatever u please.
SVB
Guest
Don't care about your little bible you hide behind there. I still believe what I said is true. Your response says it all.
Kaks
Roar Guru
"while disparaging the men’s game is not required to highlight the quality of the women’s version, in fact it is the quality of the women’s version that instead highlights the inadequacies currently plaguing the men’s game" And the qualities of the mens version highlights the inadequacies currently plaguing the women’s game.
nordster
Guest
Of course yes i bow down to your psychologising...please diagnose me... "Armed with a smattering, not of knowledge, but of undigested slogans, they rush, unsolicited, to diagnose the problems of their friends and acquaintances. Pretentiousness and presumptuousness are the psychologizer’s invariable characteristics: he not merely invades the privacy of his victims’ minds, he claims to understand their minds better than they do, to know more than they do about their own motives. With reckless irresponsibility, which an old-fashioned mystic oracle would hesitate to match, he ascribes to his victims any motivation that suits his purpose, ignoring their denials. Since he is dealing with the great “unknowable”—which used to be life after death or extrasensory perception, but is now man’s subconscious—all rules of evidence, logic and proof are suspended, and anything goes (which is what attracts him to his racket)." Im on fire, two Aunty Ayn quotes in one day....lucky uuuuuu..... :)
SVB
Guest
Nah. I reckon it's something more internal and personal that makes you do it.
Ben of Phnom Penh
Roar Guru
Women's football is more akin to a strong blue cheese; people either love it or hate it, however the cheese world would be a less interesting place with its absence.
nordster
Guest
But condescension is so underrated! And if u add a smiley it makes it ok. :)
CG2430
Guest
Then don't tell us that we should enjoy generic processed cheese singles just because Coles hasn't spent as much money procuring it as some fancy blue cheese costs to make.
SVB
Guest
The constant need to be condescending towards something probably says more about you than anything else Nordster. Why don't you just let it go.
nordster
Guest
Well by FTS' metaphor the Kraft Single isnt women's football ....the Kraft Single on the floor is. The Kraft Single is probably a park football team...ok until u drop it on the floor, then it becomes women's football? ;)
Fussball ist unser leben
Roar Guru
"If you don’t want to eat a Kraft Single that fell on the floor, you’re pretty obviously a cheese hater." Huh? That doesn't make sense. Will you never buy another pack of Kraft Singles because you were clumsy and one fell on the floor?
aladdin sane
Guest
http://www.foxsportspulse.com/comp_info.cgi?c=0-9385-0-283908-0&a=LADDER Actually, here's a better comparison. Brisbane's W-league side played in the NPL u15 boys comp last season and came last.
nordster
Guest
And we have a cheese metaphor winner! :) Well played!
aladdin sane
Guest
http://www.thelocal.se/20130116/45646 Here's an article from a few years ago that details the Swedish national women's football team being beaten 3-0 by AIK's u-17 boys team. There's about all the info you need. That's a local club side beating an international standard national team albeit u17 not u-15. I remember when I was young, my father who coached us (we were u15 A level) was going to organise a training game against the Vic women's u18 side as his mate coached them. The Vic coach wouldn't play us as they had a policy that the girls would not play boys over 14 as they could not compete physically with them once they were 15. They ended up playing our u-13s and beat them in a pretty close game. Needless to say every boy at the club was watching the game, and not to support our lads either!
nordster
Guest
All the more reason to point out the absurdity of the quote. :) "The hardest thing to explain is the glaringly evident which everybody had decided not to see." Ayn Rand.... Now there's a woman who can outplay most men on the field of philosophy.
Fear the Smell
Guest
If you don't want to eat a Kraft Single that fell on the floor, you're pretty obviously a cheese hater.
Fussball ist unser leben
Roar Guru
Sorry, Ben. That's not good enough. Unless you are eating the best cheese, created using the most advanced caseiculture techniques & using the most extravagantly expensive ingredients it's not worth eating cheese.