Anyone following the football (that’s “soccer” for the American types) going on right now? Because England are absolutely storming the UEFA Women’s Euro 2022 Championship.
Five games, no losses, TWENTY goals scored (including a brutal 8-0 victory over Norway, six of which goals were scored before halftime) and only ONE goal conceded (to Spain). Beth Mead alone has put away six goals, and Alessia Russo another four (including this cheeky backheel goal in last night’s 4-0 game against Sweden).
Frankly, if the men’s team had had a record like this in an international football competition, they’d be lining up the knighthoods already.
Second semi-final Germany-France up in 20 minutes. Germany has an equally impressive score as England so far, four wins with 11-0 goals. But I think chances between France and them are equal. Looking forward to it, I’ll be watching.
Aaaand 1-0 for Germany with a beautiful goal by Alex Popp. Her fifth in the tournament, one in every match. Deserved for Germany, they have been the dominant team.
ETA: damn, equalizer for France. An unlucky ricochet from the post to the goalie’s back.
So I have a question: Obviously, there are famous international rivalries in the men’s football - England v Germany, Argentina v Brazil, Germany v Italy, USA v Mexico, etc.
Do those rivalries also exist in women’s football?
I have to step in here and clarify: this rivalry is totally one-sided. I think the English consider this an arch-rivalry in football, but Germans don’t. Granted, there have been epic matches between England and Germany in World Cups and Euros, but German football fans in general have much respect for the English football tradition and there’s not much antipathy against the English team. Our arch-enemy in football are the Netherlands, and that’s two-sided.
But do the Germans feel as hostile about the Dutch when it comes to women playing women, as opposed to men playing men? It seems to me that rivalries are watered down a lot in women’s international sports.
I’m really not the one to answer that, I’m just an old guy who grew up on men’s football but adopted women’s football to his interests, but I cannot judge the fan culture in women’s football. I could imagine that some of the animosities carried over from the men, but I guess they are much less pronounced. In general, women’s football seems to be much less jingoistic than men’s.
And by the way, back to the actual subject of the thread, we’ll have the dream final England-Germany at Wembley. And of course scenes from 1966 and 1996 will be resurrected…
Thank you, very magnanimous, and commiserations, Germany played very well and were unlucky to lose Popp in the warmup, she may have made the difference on another day. I was there today, the atmosphere was unreal, best atmosphere I’ve ever experienced at a football match. Nail biting stuff in the second half and extra time, England were better in the first half but whatever the German coach said at half time must have worked as they were easily better from that point on. But England ground out the win and made it a day I will never ever forget. It’s finally Come Home!!!
We need to appreciate the genius of (I think it was) Lauren Hemp who lured two German defenders into the corner so that she could ping the ball off one of them to gain a corner kick. It’s not remotely a new tactic but I could see her doing it as it was happening and yet the Germans fell for it completely. And the corner kick became the second England goal.
I’m not advocating excessive reactions but to add to what I said in the OP, if the men’s team had stormed an international competition with six straight wins, 22 goals scored and only two goals ceded, and a win against Germany in the final on goals (not penalties), parts of this country would literally have been on fire last night. I do think women’s football in England is going to get a major funding boost in the immediate future, and I hope the men’s team get some coaching from Sarina Wiegman because the women’s team just played such a tight game throughout.
Also: rather amused by Chloe Kelly’s shirtless post-goal romp. I mean, yes, she deserved the yellow card because that’s what they hit the men with when they do this but still, it was pretty funny and she’ll probably pick up a sports bra endorsement contract from it.
Well done to the English ladies but I think my wife and I must’ve been watching a different game to the rest of the world, we found it pretty low-quality and boring. And we were supporting England.
It probably suffered from us watching the Liverpool V Man. City game on Saturday, compared to that it was so slow and error strewn.
Comparison to the men’s game is very tiresome. We don’t compare Fraser-Pryce to Bolt, or Williams to Nadal, so why people continue to do this with football, relentlessly, I do not know. Fair enough if you found it boring on its own merits, but it was most definitely not boring in the stadium though!
I’m not really comparing it just to the men’s game (which is so far removed from women’s football as to be a different sport) but even compared to other games in the same tournament it wasn’t very good.
Of course the media absolutely do make comparisons to the men’s game all the time so it can’t have it both ways.
Most large sporting events are exciting when you see it first hand, that’s completely independent of the quality of the game.
It is something of an “emperor’s new clothes” situation though. As a game it wasn’t great but no-one seems willing to say so. Were it a poor men’s final (of which there have been plenty) it would be a reasonable criticism but no-one even seems prepared to say “it was crap but we won” which seems to be rather patronising.
