Women's Football

[Wayman C. McCreery]

Went to Liverpool v City today. City were shit. Liverpool weren't. Hopefully that's the end of Gareth Taylor. Back to you in the studio, Alex.

[Kankurette]

Serve them right for nicking all Everton's good players over the years.

I'm not bitter.

[Kankurette]

I have no idea who I want to win today. Chelsea are Chelsea but Man United didn't even EXIST until recently and they're not only too but snapping up the big names.

[dontpaintyourteeth]

Not much of a spark in this cup final yet. Posting this in the hope someone immediately scores and makes me look like a prick

[dontpaintyourteeth]

okay a goal happened but it was not a great final

[Kankurette]

Cometh the hour, cometh the Sam.

[Herbert Ashe]

Still got a latent fondness for Turbine Potsdam, watched them lose the Champions League to Lyon at Craven Cottage 2010ish, aside having a proper good name think this has stuck because they are pretty rare now, a woman's team that isn't anything to do with a pre-existing men's side.

Well so much for that: relegated, not least because of struggling to compete with the men's affiliated sides.

[Kankurette]

Everton Stop Being Embarrassing Challenge

[BlodwynPig]

Boring chelsea win the league again.

[Herbert Ashe]

Great that there is a proper multi-club scrap for the title race, not so great that at least half the league seems to ship 3 or 4 goals against them every time they have to play any of them.

[Kankurette]

Gwaaaarn Everton

[Kankurette]

Chelsea won league. Again.

Vent time: thinking women's football is shit is not an unpopular opinion. I thought the majority of male fans either hated it or were arsed cigs about it because it's shit, slow, Sunday league, goalkeepers can't reach the ball with their weak little girl arms, etc. And seeing that on a City forum is particularly ironic given how much money has been pumped into their women's side.

The standard is not going to get better if girls and women are discouraged from playing. And what is the obsession with making women play men? So many videos of male footballers humiliating women players because the silly weak bitches think they can play a MAN'S sport.

[Ted-Maul]

I went to Man city v Everton yesterday at the academy stadium and had a good day out in sunny Manchester.

The players are all really skillful at the top level, there's tough challenges going in, classy goals, no diving, no hassling the ref, good sporting behaviour and respect between players and the players have a lot of time for the fans like signing kids autographs etc. What's not to like? I'd agree that the keepers are where I notice a drop in quality but it's the same in men's nonleague, being a GK is a really specialised position and only a tiny percentage of wannabe footballers must decide to be goalies so there's less good ones, it's always the most visible position for cocking up too. The quality of GK's will rise the more the women's game is taken seriously I reckon.

I'll admit I did feel a bit silly going to to a women's match on my own as a 40 year old feller but that's my problem to get over. I feel the women's game has been predominantly for women and children to watch so worried I'd be out of place and dragged my sister to 2 previous games this season (Liverpool v Everton at anfield and Everton v Birmingham city at Walton hall park) but blokes do attend, usually with their kids but not always. And that leads me to my main complaint...

Everton seem to have paid for 2 fellers in their 30s or 40s to bang a drum and make up chants for all the players, like ultras they don't shut up through the whole game regardless of the score. It's just so fake and at odds with what I perceived the atmosphere to be like at women's matches from watching on TV. Very few join in with their chants, the tunes they use (parklife by blur?) are irrelevant and from decades before many fans were born. They have also brought across a few chants from the men's matches which while some are good and work, others that usually have swearing in feel terribly out of place. Also singing 'the referee's a kopite' whenever a decision goes against us is cringe but also makes everyone think 'wanker'.

It's like the women's game can't be accepted until football men accept it and that they'll only do so if we make attending women's matches more like the men's. I think shoulders said it best a while ago, the women's game is its own thing so enjoy it on its own terms. It's family friendly with a big emphasis on engaging the kids, great! plus it seems like a lot of LGBT fans attend games, Great! Let's keep encouraging that and let it keep developing into its own thing instead of forcing it to be something it doesn't need (or probably want) to be.

TL:DR - I like women's football!

[Kankurette]

I find the drums kind of annoying as well. Reminds me too much of that fucking band at Hillsborough. There were a fair few men at City v Chelsea, including the Chelsea fan I was with.

One of the problems with goalkeeping is that very few girls want to be goalies. I'm hoping Mary Earps will inspire other girls now that her profile's been raised but it's not a popular position to play in. Plus there's the height problem.

[Herbert Ashe]

Champions League final streaming on youtube as FA Cup alternative. Wolfsburg up 1-0 after 3 mins, decent start so far if you ignore Wolfsburg kit.

[Senior Baiano]

Bit rum to go directly up against the english fa cup final, which, i know its just one country and the urban myth about the billions around the world watching on cup final day is just that, but still, it's a high profile game to clash with. And the CL finalcould have been two english teams- hope there was a contingency to move the kick off if that had happened

[Herbert Ashe]

Think the FA Cup got moved from 5:xx because of train strikes, but yeah I agree. Still knock-on from the world cup messing schedules I think, it was also a bit weird having the WSL and PL finish on the same weekend.

Wolfsburg 2 up now, Barcelona had plenty of chances to get equalise but it'll be tough now to get back into it without Wolfsburg getting more chances on the break.

[Stone Cold Steve Austin]

3-2!

[Kankurette]

Fuerza Barça!

[Herbert Ashe]

Yeah so much for whatever I said up there. Start of 2nd half Barca seemed like they just wound up the intensity a bit, 2 quick goals and then they were back in control.

Good final, much more enjoyable to watch than the other one on the other screen (still bitter about the semi).

[BlodwynPig]

Forza Barça!

?? Wrong language.

Got to feel for Eva Pajor, the Pole picking up her 4th runner-up medal. I remember her in the final against Lyon a few years back, looking dead pissed off. Thought she'd definitely be back in the final wanting blood. She scored and assisted today and still didn't win the thing.

Forza Pajor!

[Theoretical Dentist]

The World Cup is starting right now so I guess this is a World Cup thread now. Anyone watching?

Personally (since I used to live there) I'm excited to see Zambia in their first World Cup in any gender category. Their games in the last Olympics were dramatic if not entirely successful, so might get some fun games. Since then they've won the COSAFA Championship but their opposition in te World Cup will be tougher than your Eswatinis and your Tanzanias. They're the lowest-ranked team in the World Cup so any kind of non-defeat will be an achievement, but I'm looking forward to just seeing them play.

England will have high expectations after their Euros win. It would help if Beth Mead and Leah Williamson had fully functioning ligaments that worked properly, but plenty of other teams have been afflicted by the ACL plague too.

It'll be interesting to see how Australia do with (partial) home advantage and a strong team including Sam Kerr. Otherwise there will be perennial near-favourites like the US, Germany and Sweden, and a few other debutants besides Zambia, and no doubt some interesting stories will develop.

It's happening in Australia and New Zealand so that brings up some off-field issues, I think, although I haven't seen much coverage of them. In the run-up to the Qatar men's World Cup there were plenty of complaints about human rights, calls for boycotts and so on. I haven't seen any of that this time despite the fact that Australia is a complete human rights shit show, although it's complicated by New Zealand being probably one of the least objectionable places to host anything. Similarly in Qatar there was a lot of coverage of the environmental impact, but for this World Cup I haven't seen any complaints about the way the venues are separated by vast distances which will presumably be covered by plane, and how Australia is one of the most coal-dependent countries in the world (again New Zealand is much better). I haven't really gone out of my way to find any of this commentary or read/watched a huge amount of coverage in general, so I could well be missing something, but it was hard to avoid in coverage of Qatar. If there really is a difference in coverage of these issues I have some ideas about why that might be, but does anyone care at all?

The other practical consequence of the choice of hosts is that the matches are in the mornings in the UK. It'll have a bit of a weird feel; I enjoyed the timing 2002 men's World Cup in similar time zones in Japan and South korea, but I was a student at the time. Still, I managed to get up in time for the first match which is about to start, so let's go.

[Thursday]

It's quite weird there's early morning games and also some very late night games. Game times all over place because of the multiple time zones.

I haven't seen any of that this time despite the fact that Australia is a complete human rights shit show, although it's complicated by New Zealand being probably one of the least objectionable places to host anything. Similarly in Qatar there was a lot of coverage of the environmental impact, but for this World Cup I haven't seen any complaints about the way the venues are separated by vast distances which will presumably be covered by plane, and how Australia is one of the most coal-dependent countries in the world (again New Zealand is much better). I haven't really gone out of my way to find any of this commentary or read/watched a huge amount of coverage in general, so I could well be missing something, but it was hard to avoid in coverage of Qatar. If there really is a difference in coverage of these issues I have some ideas about why that might be, but does anyone care at all?

I don't think most people would consider Australia's issues even close to Qatar's issues. That's why you haven't seen anything.

[imitationleather]

Wish I didn't have a job now so I could watch this.

Hopefully I'll be fired soon.

[buttgammon]

It's so confusing to be watching a nighttime game where it's visibly cold (looking at how wrapped up people are in the stands) on a summer's morning.

[Theoretical Dentist]

Yeah, there's a good spread of kick-off times so might be possible to catch a few games without being fired.

Also, checking the fixtures, I see the Scottish League Cup is starting on Saturday just after Denmark v China finishes. What the fuck, grim march of time?

[buttgammon]

Yeah, there's a good spread of kick-off times so might be possible to catch a few games without being fired.

Also, checking the fixtures, I see the Scottish League Cup is starting on Saturday just after Denmark v China finishes. What the fuck, grim march of time?

When it comes down to it, modern football is just a memento mori for me, Clive.

[Kankurette]

There's a few newbie countries, I think Panama's another one. Zambia upset a load of transphobes because the star player has high testosterone levels and they think she's a bloke, even though she was cleared to appear in the tournament.

Oz isn't great but I'd rather live there than Russia or Qatar. It's a weird venue to host it though, given the distance.

[Inspector Norse]

Oz isn't great but I'd rather live there than Russia or Qatar. It's a weird venue to host it though, given the distance.

It's a long-established sporting nation with a good tradition of women's sport and modern infrastructure and facilities. Yes they have had some very dodgy right-wing governments but it is regarded as a modern, developed, quasi-Western nation and has had rugby, cricket etc World Cups so no one is looking at the human rights stuff.

That it's a long way from Europe doesn't matter; that the internal distances are long does obviously mean some wangling with start times and adaptation, and has a knock-on effect on climate issues, but compare it to the men's WC taking place in Brazil or Russia, or indeed at the other extreme in Qatar which is the size of Norwich. And the next men's one is in the entire of North America, which will lead to complete time zone chaos meaning the semi-finals will kick off before the group games have finished.

[jobotic]

The opening match is the final!