Outrageous bad luck for the England women. Our centre back could try that clearance another 100 times and she wouldn't get close to an own goal. But I thought the tactics were flawed. We left our skilful players out in the hope that power and size would overcome the Japanese passing game. It sort of did but the players on the field didn't have the gumption to score (apart from the very soft penalty) and a mistake therefore cost them.
They played very well in the second half England and were desperately unlucky to lose like that. The Japan team were likened to Barca, but it was the Barca of a few years ago getting beat by Bayern, Real and Chelsea - i.e. impressive ball retention but very little threat. Arsenal would have been a better comparison. I do wonder if Bassett has stopped crying yet.
Women's football is still pretty ****, but I don't really understand why it's ****. I'd have thought that the physical difference would've made it less about power and strength and more about skill and technique, like tennis. This doesn't seem to be the case and it's just objectively worse than the men's game, both in terms of quality and entertainment. I can see it changing over time and it would probably be a good idea for Spurs to spend some money on it now, as we're clearly miles behind other teams. Most people won't care about that and I'm not sure that I do either, but I'm surprised that Levy doesn't see it as another commercial opportunity.
Firstly, there is no point in comparing the game with men's football. Whatever social policy reasons might exist for promoting women's football, the game is poor. It lacks the power, intensity, quality and entertainment of the men's game. It's not sexism to say it. Men and women are different physiologically, although this fact often seems to be ignored in any analysis. Those differences make for greater speed, stamina, strength and skill in the men's game. There is no doubt about that. If Barcelona played the England women's team, the latter would be humiliated. There would be many boys' teams who would fare better. Just like Djokovic would beat any women's tennis player with one hand tied behind his back Sport is about physical superiority. In most sports, men have the upper hand by a massive margin. Is it worthwhile as sport despite being vastly inferior in quality? Yes, of course it is. The drama and tension was great. It's great to have a women's team competing for success for the country in the World Cup and making a far better effort than the men did. But in terms of it's standard, it's like watching a Sunday league game - and as such is never going to engage true sports fans in the same way as a game played at a higher level where much better footballers are pitted together. Accordingly, it is never going to make out a case on merit for being treated as the equal of the men's game. It is never going to attract broadcasters and sponsors in the same way because of the demand to watch it, buy merchandise etc and therefore there will never be the prospect of professional women players being paid sums to rival their male counterparts (although there will always be the odd isolated exception like Alex Morgan in the U.S - but I've yet to read about her without the word "hot" being used, so draw your own conclusions). If people enjoy women's football on its own merits, that's fine; but personally I don't and that doesn't make me sexist.
I think the other problem facing women's football in England, aside from quality, is that men's football is such an established force that trying to convince people to invest their time and money into it is very difficult when people already invest those things in significant quantities in a men's team. Male and female fans aren't just going to stop supporting their men's team to support a women's team round the corner, and they might well not be able to do both. I guess that the greater support (at least I get the impression that the support is greater) for women's football in the USA and Germany, to pluck two examples from the air, comes from the fact that in the USA football is a growing force and therefore people can start off supporting a women's team rather than having to be put in a position where they have to change an established loyalty, and in Germany football seems to be a much cheaper sport to follow, so I imagine its more accessible there. A solution might be to allow season ticket holders of, say, Spurs, to also go to Spurs Ladies games for free (or does this already happen, I don't know), but this still means that people would have to pay for travel and take time out of their days to go to the games. If such a scheme was to become a central focus of a drive to increase the following of women's football though that might bring in all sorts of scheduling issues.
I think that this is a major issue for the women's game. It needs to sell itself in a different way, as it just loses completely as a competitor. Having the league run from March to October's a decent start, but I think that most people are starting to welcome the summer break. There's so much football available nowdays that it'll be really hard to pull people in with an inferior product.
The saturated market is indeed an issue, as is the fact that demand for football is fairly inelastic - people are prepared to sacrifice a lot of time, money and effort in supporting a team, especially since most people make a long-term emotional attachment to a club. You have to get people involved in the women's game before the man's game grabs them, or make the two work hand in hand for supporters. Neither is easy when the men's game has such a dominant position in the market and culturally too.
I imagine this is because in tennis the potential earnings for the top men and women are quite similar and much higher than in most other jobs. So if you are a young tennis player with potential you are likely to go for it so the 100 top women tennis players probably contains most of the potentially good ones. the same thing applies to male footballers but why should a female Messi take up football at all when she could have higher earnings potential in a lot of other jobs. So only a small proportion of the top talent makes it through with the obvious effect on overall quality.
Since there's Gooners saying Arsenal won the Copa America, does that mean Spurs are the new NXT champion?
I ****ing warned you! http://www.tottenhamhotspur.com/news/new-scheme-reaction-080715/? "In response to the early reaction, Christopher Lee, the Senior Principal of our stadium architects, Populus, stated..."
Oh dear, Yedlin's got a tramp stamp... please log in to view this image ...and that's before considering the scenario that the team go for a night out, when one of Yedlin's defensive teammates gets wasted and sees a tattoo reading "carpe diem" and decides to act on that advice, and before you know it a drunken Tim Ream is attempting to live up to his name in a way that's not going to be popular in the Bible Belt.
I'm no tennis expert, but I know a genius when I see one. Federer is a top sportsman and it's a pleasure to witness someone at the top of their game.
I'm no expert either but he makes it look astonishingly easy. You watch him on court against the hustle and bustle of someone like Murray, and Federer is just strolling around hitting his one-handed backhands, but he's not fazed by it at all. He also seems to be a top guy and a consummate professional. Thats not to say that the athletic side of tennis isn't admirable too, I saw a slo-mo shot of Djokovic sliding across the court to make a shot yesterday and it quite literally looked like his ankles would snap off. Astonishing flexibility. The Mens Final is going to be some game hopefully.
Federer is a genius at striking the ball. The other top players rely more on their athleticism, especially Nadal, who’s far and away the best tennis playing athlete there ever was, with the exception of Borg. If Federer had ever bothered to develop a decent high backhand he would have been nearly unbeatable. On the other hand, Nadal is a righty.
