The General Football Thread

I think the main difference is the pace. Women's football is much slower and whilst the physical aspect does make a difference in the spectacle, there are elements of individual skill which are offset, to my mind, with poor team play. The lack of vision in some of the attacking play is abundantly apparent but, to take an example, the Scottish goalkeeper was lauded this evening yet in one save I am not convinced she knew what she was doing and the ball appeared to come off her knee.

It is interesting comparing this with non-league football where you can see fast tempo, pressing and wildly entertaining football. Some of the goals I saw last season at the Simply Health ground would have made Match of the Day Goa of the Season if scored in the Premiership. I think that the non-league game in the UK is littered with really talented players, many of whom commenced their careers with professional teams. What I saw this afternoon was not always convincing and I just think that male players with the ability of the women players donning the shirts for England and Scotland would not be playing football professionally. I agree that the female game has improved considerably over the last ten years but I think it remains over-praised.

 

It will be interesting in August if I can convince my niece to watch the Vipers at the Ageas Bowl to see how good women's cricket is in comparison. I have never watched this but my guess is that the gulf will not be remarkably different albeit I would envisage fewer boundaries.

 

I don't enjoy it. I respect their tenacity, but its like league two on a boggy pitch in winter. Safe, over hit or backward. It just doesn't do it for me.

 

No wonder Lapras follows it, it's what he is used to at Nottarf.....

 

Yep

 

I was thinking the same and then I saw the penalty given against Jamaica - I thought that was very ball to hand and harsh! I think we are just going to see loads of people kicking the ball at people's hands and more games decided by dubious penalties like the Champions League final, when they are not stopping goal scoring chances.

 

An England player said that he will have to change the way he plays if jostling like that cancels out goals as it is normal in the pl. Going to change the English game..

Incidentally the FA made 7 mill from getting a 3rd spot.

 

With regards to women's football, I feel like people need to re adjust their expectations. Okay, the football might be at a lower level, but obviously it's going to be a lower level than men's football because there are less teams, less players and most players are part time and football has only been a viable career choice in the last few years so plenty of good players would have dropped out or been restricted as to who they could play for because of things like travel with work etc, like in men's non league football. Though in terms of greed and corruption and elitism, women's football is definitely on a par with men's football there and in relative terms I would say it's worse. I cannot support the England team for those reasons. So my interest in the women's world Cup is limited. I might watch some due to my feminist tenancy but I refuse to watch England

 

Have you invented a new phrase? it’s a good one and although just a missing letter, that’s quite good. A woman living within?

You should claim that one before some fancy wordsmith does.

 

Damn autocorrect

 

Is she any relation of that Millicent Tenancy who used to run the council in Liverpool?

 

Read an interesting article today asking why some people are quite vicious about women's football (not pointing fingers at anyone on here btw) but are not similarly angry about any other women's teams. I suppose these would be the same people who got women's football effectively banned till 1971....the original ban was initiated because women's football used to attract bigger gates than some men's sides...so basically a case of the old boys' club. As the writer said...if you don't like it, don't watch it...just like any other activity.

A point the writer didn't consider was that perhaps football does still have a nastier subgroup of fans that is not present in other sports such as athletics, cycling etc.

 

There was a fascinating book that I read several years ago about footballers who were involved in World War One and part of the book looked at the fact that this saw an upsurge in women playing football,, often, as Fran correctly states, playing to enormous crowds. The record attendance was over 70,000. It is quite interesting to see that women's football had this amount of participation and interest. I believe that it was the FA that actually ensured that women's football was thwarted immediately after the Armistice although the fact that many of the teams playing had actually been affiliated to factories working in the war effort would have also have been a factor.

I would pick Fran up here insofar that I think that most people of this board are open minded about women's football. Regardless of what sex is playing in the current World Cup, the matches have not been great and I think that the standard of football has not been good in this competition. I would make this statement if it was the men's World Cup . Frankly, the football has been disappointing although players like Nikita Parris have been hugely impressive. She is the exception in this competition so far rather than the norm. Any hostility towards the women's game is unacceptable whilst, at the same time, I think the journalists and commentators should be honest and call it correctly when the matches have been a disappointment. Any publicity and the availability of live matches on TV is welcome yet I feel the BBC for one maybe needs to be a bit more considered in it's coverage of a game which still has a long way to go before it can deliver it's potential and is throwing up matches which are probably equivalent to the non-league men's game in the UK.

 

Ireland 1 - 0 Gibraltar

Let's be honest, that's an embarrassing result.

Losing to Ireland!

 

I said that I didn't include people on here....after all everyone is allowed not to like a particular sport or version of it. It is more about men who get their knickers in a twist about women even playing football....something you don't see a lot with other sports. Sour grapes perhaps because they couldn't become professional themselves despite kicking a ball about in their teens. Female players themselves are the first to say that women's football is different due to a difference in physicality....but if you criticise women for having less strength then the same people should moan about kids football...but they probably don't. As for skill levels...the number of really good players will increase as time goes by and the number of fully professional players increases...still early days. Until relatively recently international players still had other jobs and most women play in semi-professional and amateur teams. Time to develop and more challenging leagues to play in will produce considerable improvement.

Sport is good for people on health grounds and psychologically it is good for people to cooperate in a team situation...different issue I know.

 

Was an own goal too but they got a second at the end.

Great win for Kosovo though.

 

Just saw they got a second. Bit more respectable.

Amazing for Kosovo.

 

I read earlier about some big gates too; maybe the same article but I can’t remember where I read it.

I do remember going to watch England Ladies beat Belgium Ladies 3-0 at The Dell. There were 5 Saints players in the England team and I’d hazard a guess at 1978 for the year.

 

What is nice about ladies games is that there are lots of kids in the crowd (probably reflecting the cheaper price making it possible for whole families to go)...this may encourage the future generations of football fans who actually attend games rather than watch on devices.

 

I try to like women's football and appreciate their skill, but the physical side of the game is a joke...