4-0 16 minutes in...women's soccer

[Sgt. Largent]

Flopping, faking injury is just something inferior teams do to try to gain an advantage, look at the NBA, flopping was never really part of the game until you seen Divac start doing it consistently to try to get others into foul trouble, then everyone started to do it. I think that's what the true Power forward isn't as much a part of the game as they used to be either.

Divac played for the Lakers, and was an all star. He was far from an inferior player, and was on many winning teams.

Dozens of top soccer stars dive, including Ronaldo, arguably the best soccer player on the planet.

So diving and flopping has nothing to do with inferior players or teams. It has to do with gaining an advantage over your opponent resulting in free throws, free kicks, fouls or goals.

No one thinks it's a good part of any sport, but since sports were invented there were players trying to figure out a way to gain advantages over their opponents without getting caught. Some players deflate footballs, some players put stickum on their gloves, some players scuff the baseball.............and some players dive.

 

[Kennedyin92]

I think the quality of the play is still awful in general. In a majority of the games a majority of the time, it is slow paced, technically bad, and most goals happen from absurd mistakes and/or goalkeepers not making average saves. In Sweden it's kind of awkward since everyone who watched notice that the quality of play is severely lacking, but the media is trying so hard to make it seem like it is really good.

But to me, the interessting thing here is not womens soccer vs mens soccer, but rather why womens soccer is so much worse than most other women sports? There is no angry mobs rushing to attack womens tennis, skiing, running, high jumping etc etc, but as soon as womens soccer is brought up everyone just sighs and rolls their eyes. (In Sweden that is).

The thing is though that women high jumpers jump WAAAAAY higher than any normal person can, women olympic sprinters are REALLY fast etc etc. It is just obvious when watching them that they are elite athletes way better than the people sitting in the couch. With soccer though, the womens national team is consistently beaten badly by random teams of 15 year old boys. When Umeå IK was one of the best womens clubs in the world and had Marta (best player at the time) they lost 5-1 to one of the citys 15yr boys teams. You combine knowing this fact with seeing how boring it can be to watch such low quality of play compared to what is usually shown on tv (going from CL, PL, world cup games to watch this tournament almost feels like another sport) and with the announcers always overly positive (if a keeper in the mens game just barely cant reach a pretty good shot, the announcers are kinda picking on him, but when the womens keeper makes a baffling mistake the just go "oh unlucky...great shot.."

So to summarize: Almost noboby is complaining on other womens sports because the people watching know they can't do better themselves. With soccer however, the vast majority of 20 something men know that they most likely could assemble a team of their friends and friends of friends that would beat the womens national team.

Many of you probably think the US team would beat a bad english division 2 team, but the truth is that they would lose badly to EVERY mens team that is in any kind of competitive division, and to most organized junior teams above age 15 as well. The difference is HUGE.

Nice to see that misogyny is still alive and well. With all the excitement about a women's sport, I was getting worried. :sarcasm_on:

 

[Sgt. Largent]

Nice to see that misogyny is still alive and well. With all the excitement about a women's sport, I was getting worried. :sarcasm_on:

Don't confuse excitement over USA! USA! USA! and correlate it to women's sports in general. Same goes for the men btw, MLS attendance is decent, but not huge overall.........yet the USMNT matches in the World Cup get great ratings.

The WNBA attendance average is about 8-9k a game, and the NWSL about 3-4k a match.

Doesn't mean the women winning the WC isn't an awesome thing, or a great indicator that the United States is a fantastic progressive country that does more than most countries in making sure women's sports is well funded and represented on a national level. But to correlate what the women's national team just did with a huge spike in love for women's sports in general? I can't go that far.

 

[Uncle Si]

Nice to see that misogyny is still alive and well. With all the excitement about a women's sport, I was getting worried. :sarcasm_on:

Don't confuse excitement over USA! USA! USA! and correlate it to women's sports in general. Same goes for the men btw, MLS attendance is decent, but not huge overall.........yet the USMNT matches in the World Cup get great ratings.

The WNBA attendance average is about 8-9k a game, and the NWSL about 3-4k a match.

Doesn't mean the women winning the WC isn't an awesome thing, or a great indicator that the United States is a fantastic progressive country that does more than most countries in making sure women's sports is well funded and represented on a national level. But to correlate what the women's national team just did with a huge spike in love for women's sports in general? I can't go that far.

you may want to read the post Kennedyin92 was quoting...

 

[Sgt. Largent]

Nice to see that misogyny is still alive and well. With all the excitement about a women's sport, I was getting worried. :sarcasm_on:

Don't confuse excitement over USA! USA! USA! and correlate it to women's sports in general. Same goes for the men btw, MLS attendance is decent, but not huge overall.........yet the USMNT matches in the World Cup get great ratings.

The WNBA attendance average is about 8-9k a game, and the NWSL about 3-4k a match.

Doesn't mean the women winning the WC isn't an awesome thing, or a great indicator that the United States is a fantastic progressive country that does more than most countries in making sure women's sports is well funded and represented on a national level. But to correlate what the women's national team just did with a huge spike in love for women's sports in general? I can't go that far.

you may want to read the post Kennedyin92 was quoting...

I did, Swedish was definitely harsh. I was just trying to convey the same thing, except with a little more tact.

Just as when the USMNT does well and everyone thinks that soccer in the US is going to explode, it's the same for the women's team. People get confused with national pride vs. overall excitement over the sport, or in this case women's sports.

 

[Uncle Si]

Nice to see that misogyny is still alive and well. With all the excitement about a women's sport, I was getting worried. :sarcasm_on:

Don't confuse excitement over USA! USA! USA! and correlate it to women's sports in general. Same goes for the men btw, MLS attendance is decent, but not huge overall.........yet the USMNT matches in the World Cup get great ratings.

The WNBA attendance average is about 8-9k a game, and the NWSL about 3-4k a match.

Doesn't mean the women winning the WC isn't an awesome thing, or a great indicator that the United States is a fantastic progressive country that does more than most countries in making sure women's sports is well funded and represented on a national level. But to correlate what the women's national team just did with a huge spike in love for women's sports in general? I can't go that far.

you may want to read the post Kennedyin92 was quoting...

I did, Swedish was definitely harsh. I was just trying to convey the same thing, except with a little more tact.

Just as when the USMNT does well and everyone thinks that soccer in the US is going to explode, it's the same for the women's team. People get confused with national pride vs. overall excitement over the sport, or in this case women's sports.

Thats what you took from Sweden's post?

OK...

Soccer is exploding. Has been for roughly 5 years now. This was just more evidence of it.

 

[Swedishhawkfan]

Yeah my post did end up kind of harsh, it was not intended as a "women suck at soccer" post, but more a "why is it that women highjumpers, sprinters etc, were physicality is imo MORE important than in soccer are seemingly equal to the men, but soccer in particular looks so far behind?

In sweden, womens soccer always becomes a hot potato, since there are always the idiots who do the "girls should not play soccer" angle, and then there are the "womens national team is the best team ever" crowd. The majority though is probably like me, watch a little bit and see clearly that this is not on the level that you are used to see soccer played.

When women high jump 2m and men jump 2.32, no one cares about that because it looks exactly the same! The product of womens high jump is just as good as the viewing product of men's high jump. But the entertainment product of womens soccer is clearly lacking compared to mens soccer. And this is just kind of a mystery, since just like Uncle si said the difference in physicality should not matter that much, and technical skill appear to be a much bigger problem.

Uncle si is also right about the strategy part. I stand by the statement that any mens team that plays in the league system in a major european country (and don't have massive injury problems etc) would beat the US womens national team. A bunch of former players scrapping together a team (aka the couch players) would need coaching and practice on how to play as a team, and would probably lose (?) if just pulled from the street.

But comparing it to mens soccer is not really the point or intressting, what is intressting to me is why has so many other sports been able to put a similar product on the field when men and women play, but not soccer?

 

[Sgt. Largent]

But comparing it to mens soccer is not really the point or intressting, what is intressting to me is why has so many other sports been able to put a similar product on the field when men and women play, but not soccer?

Like what? Other than basketball, I can't think of a more successful sport than women also play than soccer.

 

[Uncle Si]

But comparing it to mens soccer is not really the point or intressting, what is intressting to me is why has so many other sports been able to put a similar product on the field when men and women play, but not soccer?

But again, that's not accurate. Mens and womens sports are far different, when compared to each other. Alot of the sports you mention are individual. If we put women's and men's track and field together, what would we see? Basketball, hockey, etc. all fall to the same, fundamental differences upon comparison: athleticism. You're only valued comparison was high jump? And even then, you are far off:

Men's world record: 2.45 m (8 ft. 3/4 in)
Womens: 2.09 M (6ft. 10 1/4in)

That's over a full foot. That's alot....

But when you strip that away, you find a different model. Where the bigger difference is in terms of soccer is the technical ability. The women haven't really grasped onto the elite technical skills that you see in the men's games (much like in basketball).

 

[Swedishhawkfan]

My point with the high jump was the entertainment part in that the technique etc looks just as good, they just don't jump as high. So for the viewer on tv, everything appears perfectly fine. When the swedish goalkeeper somehow concedes a really weak shot on germanys first goal in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piu9JTTHKcU , due to standing waaay to close to the near post and not adjusting laterally as the german was moving in, the Swedish announcers were just saying "Oh that is just unfortunate!" and germanys goal at 1:40 only happens due to the same kind of massive keeper error as the first goal, but the announcers just said "wow spectacular goal". It's like the announcers have decided that everything is amazing regardless of what is actually happening on the field. When i watch soccer i prefer as many "holy shit that was sick" moments, and as few "uuuuugh wtf was that?" moments as possible.

I havent watched any significant amount of womens basketball, but it is true that all the sports I can think of were the difference is not that noticeable are individual sports. Perhaps teamsports are just more complex in general, making difference in skill level between teams more visually obvious? I mean I would probably get bored to death trying to watch a swedish division 4 mens game to since I mainly watch soccer for CL, world cup, big PL matches etc etc