All-Encompassing Womens Soccer Thread

[John Price]

France score again.

 

[Jussi]

Art from Dali.

 

[Jack Straw]

I just want to go on record as saying this guy (forget his name, maybe intentionally) doing the PxP on Fox is awful. He. Just. Will. Not. Shut. Up.

 

[John Price]

France up 3-0 23 min in.

 

[East Coast Bias]

I just want to go on record as saying this guy (forget his name, maybe intentionally) doing the PxP on Fox is awful. He. Just. Will. Not. Shut. Up.

The coverage as a whole is awful on Fox. Very little analysis. Just nonsense and hot take attempts.

 

[John Price]

I just want to go on record as saying this guy (forget his name, maybe intentionally) doing the PxP on Fox is awful. He. Just. Will. Not. Shut. Up.

John Strong is good. The only bad one is lalas

 

[Jack Straw]

John Strong is good. The only bad one is lalas

John Strong is the one whose name I forgot. Not my cup of java. Talks too way much and has a weird cadence to his voice. Good PxP announcers step back and let the game tell its own story.

Agree Lalas is awful though.

 

[robertmac43]

The Columbia v Jamaica game was wildly entertaining. Back in forth through much of the game, lots of open space.

The Columbia goal was amazing!

 

[John Price]

That us ad was just asking for trouble.

 

[StreetHawk]

That us ad was just asking for trouble.

Agreed. They were frontrunning for several years, now the competition has caught up to them. Good for the program that a lot of the older guard will be moved off in favour of a younger group.

 

[Ben Grimm]

Alex Morgan Is 'Not Planning' to Retire After USWNT's 'Devastating' World Cup Defeat

Alex Morgan said she's 'not planning' to retire after the USWNT's 'devastating' loss in the 2023 World Cup

people.com

She can play, just not on the USWNT.

 

[KevFu]

I have not posted in this section before; hope my opinion is still valid....

NWSL is not the top women's league anymore. The US womens team is not in decline; it's just the rest of the women's teams have caught up. Japan, Spain, England, Netherlands, and Sweden looked very good from what I saw. Especially Japan - they moved the ball round very very well.

The US will adapt to this fact, and pick up their game moving forward. Yes, that means some of the holdovers got a bit over confident, but it doesn't make them bad people, they just didn't pay close enough attention to the overall scene.

While it won't be easy, they will bounce back next go around...

Yeah, it's interesting to hear people "arguing" about what's THE REASON the US were terrible this cycle and pretty much ALL of the (non-political) reasons are true!

The NSWL isn't the top women's league because the other countries have DEVELOPMENT STRUCTURE that was the reason their MEN were much better than the US Men.... And they opened it up to women 10-15 years ago.

The US was just taking the 23 best players who happened to develop on their own and sending them to the World Cup -- which was good enough for like 12-20 in the world on the men's side just because we have 300+ million people this whole time.

On the women's side, we had the same "non-development" system of using colleges; but other countries DIDN'T EVEN HAVE THAT.

Now that Europe has INCLUDED WOMEN in their development systems, the women's "hierarchy" is totally shifting to resemble the men's -- and look no further than Morocco as proof of that.

But at the same time our best 23 on the women's side are STILL REALLY GOOD and CAN compete for a World Cup. We were just stuck with a bad coach who would have struggled with the 2015 and 2019 roster, let alone one that is "between generations."

You have four years to prepare of the WC and we somehow put out a starting XI that had NEVER PLAYED AS ONE UNIT BEFORE.

 

[KevFu]

A youth academy system would do wonders. Canada needs to get the Womens league in place first, after that, more youth options on both the women's and mens side of the game.

A youth academy system is definitely more important than your own women's league. CREATING elite players with elite skill happens well before players are "professional age" and can leave home and travel the country playing for money in a league.

And due to our proximity and friendship, you can just piggyback on NWSL: Sell your players to NWSL team to fund the academy, or buy one NWSL expansion team (Toronto or Vancouver) and stock it with the Canadian youth team.

Canada has more kids playing soccer than any other sport and it has been that way for years, but the youth structures are a joke. We need a top to bottom overhaul of the system to produce better results.

Agreed. The US women need this, too. I can't speak for Canada, but the US non-system for youth sports is: You play games, you practice on your own; the stats you put up in games get you noticed for the next opportunity (High school, travel leagues, college, etc). It's like a 1-to-5 ratio of PRACTICE to GAMES. The players have to build skill on their own.

In the academy system, the games are the reward at the end of the week. You practice/train at a 5-to-1 ratio. The emphasis is on SKILL and no one cares about the stats.

US Soccer sought to fix that, and got 150 academy teams who'd adhere to their "skill training first" system. And they got the MLS to buy in: Run academies and YOU CAN OWN the player rights of whom you develop. So now MLS teams are a player on the transfer export-markets, opening up a new revenue stream. And we've switched from MLS being a development league to "our US Soccer players need to be Too good for MLS and sold to Europe."

The system is bearing fruit for the first time, starting with 2022 in Qatar, where we LOOK night and day better than ever. Results were pretty much the same, but the style of play was totally different: We passed and played possession instead of relying on our elite goalkeeper, a physical backline and counter-attacking with one star mid and one star forward (which was exactly what ALL OUR TEAMS WERE from 1990-2014).

And on the women's side, globally, you could see the same night and day difference in the quality of football. The only two teams to EVER hold the #1 world ranking are out of the tournament. The average rank of the quarterfinalists is like 9 when it used to be 5.

As exciting as it is to see our men's team get better and become more competitive, it's really sad to see the US women fall leaders to also being "more competitive."


But it all starts with development. And waiting til kids are 18 is way too late.

 

[Barrsy]

Imagine wanting these women to be the face of your country...

Odd that posts like this can be made but so many posts taking a contrary view get deleted.
Geez, I wonder why.

 

[robertmac43]

A youth academy system is definitely more important than your own women's league. CREATING elite players with elite skill happens well before players are "professional age" and can leave home and travel the country playing for money in a league.

And due to our proximity and friendship, you can just piggyback on NWSL: Sell your players to NWSL team to fund the academy, or buy one NWSL expansion team (Toronto or Vancouver) and stock it with the Canadian youth team.

The NWSL route favours American born players, a lot of Canadian women get stuck post college. We need a league that can continue to give opportunities to the women who are not quite good enough for the top level out of college but could get there in a few years time.

If you can pair the new league with a youth system, even better.

 

[Scandale du Jour]

The NWSL route favours American born players, a lot of Canadian women get stuck post college. We need a league that can continue to give opportunities to the women who are not quite good enough for the top level out of college but could get there in a few years time.

If you can pair the new league with a youth system, even better.

We certainly need the league... but I think the youth system is ultimately more important... but (that's a lot of buts lol) can you have an efficient youth system without an academy system linked to a league?

CFM, TFC and the Whitecaps have to be leaders on that front. The CPL owners too (maybe those scumbags can use the money they are stealing from the CSA and fund a league).

 

[KevFu]

The NWSL route favours American born players, a lot of Canadian women get stuck post college. We need a league that can continue to give opportunities to the women who are not quite good enough for the top level out of college but could get there in a few years time.

If you can pair the new league with a youth system, even better.

It definitely does favor Americans more, but I think that there's no reason to try and make a "competing" Canadian league for the purpose of benefiting Canadian soccer... When you can get the best of all worlds by simply "using" the existing US league structure, not take on risks, and embrace a BETTER MODEL than what the US has within their league.

Toronto FC and Vancouver Whitecaps FC should just launch women's teams (like the European model instead of American one). Pay expansion fees to NWSL and just play there.

They can focus on Canadian players, academy side first and you don't have to set up a league office, or eight investor/team owners, negotiate TV deals or CBAs or anything like that.

An d if you need MORE teams for Canadian development... you've got a blueprint for Montreal, or investors in Quebec, Ottawa, Calgary, Edmonton to follow.

 

[Scandale du Jour]

It definitely does favor Americans more, but I think that there's no reason to try and make a "competing" Canadian league for the purpose of benefiting Canadian soccer... When you can get the best of all worlds by simply "using" the existing US league structure, not take on risks, and embrace a BETTER MODEL than what the US has within their league.

Toronto FC and Vancouver Whitecaps FC should just launch women's teams (like the European model instead of American one). Pay expansion fees to NWSL and just play there.

They can focus on Canadian players, academy side first and you don't have to set up a league office, or eight investor/team owners, negotiate TV deals or CBAs or anything like that.

An d if you need MORE teams for Canadian development... you've got a blueprint for Montreal, or investors in Quebec, Ottawa, Calgary, Edmonton to follow.

Not really. They just integrated an existing provincial system. They did not set up a real academy yet.

 

[robertmac43]

We certainly need the league... but I think the youth system is ultimately more important... but (that's a lot of buts lol) can you have an efficient youth system without an academy system linked to a league?

Yeah, I think to have the women's youth infrastructure in place we would need the league. If we had pro teams with academies it would do wonders.

 

[KevFu]

just because you are white and married it does not mean you automatically are a christian.

That is true. But she, and her bio, says she is.

Not really. They just integrated an existing provincial system. They did not set up a real academy yet.

I'm saying the academy system is more significant than the league... you can have an academy system for men and women, run by the Canadian MLS teams, with the women's senior teams playing in NWSL and you're a lot better off than if you have a domestic league of your own without academies.

 

[Savant]

 

[Ben Grimm]

I'm picking Nigeria to win.

 

[DoyleG]

We certainly need the league... but I think the youth system is ultimately more important... but (that's a lot of buts lol) can you have an efficient youth system without an academy system linked to a league?

CFM, TFC and the Whitecaps have to be leaders on that front. The CPL owners too (maybe those scumbags can use the money they are stealing from the CSA and fund a league).

The MLS boys were never interested to begin with. The only reason they have anything close to academy systems is because MLS insisted on it (TFC didn't want an academy system).

and we can stop with the anti-CSB tin foil conspiracy. Not CSB's fault that they signed a deal under different circumstances.

 

[DoyleG]

Great post. Totally nailed it. On social media...the people celebrating the loss all have a lot in common. Weird. Even if someone doesn't like the activism...it isn't every player. Smdh. I don't understand the hate for people who are different...sigh

More because they don't like the USWNT fanbase, given the lack of understanding that they have of the sport.

The "complaints" about the turf in 2015 when the problems were with the method of play. Especially since they didn't want to admit that the USWNT played better once Wambach as placed on the bench after their R16 win.

Dumping on the USMNT after they got knocked out of the 2018 WCQ by T&T. Watching them come with the gloating attitude about the women winning World Cups. Acting with the attitude that "The men should be able to beat T&T 10-0 because the women can do that" and showing how little they know of the sport itself.

Behavior of not only the players in 2019, but also fans whining about how they can't get an Uber in a French city as conveniently as they do in the US. Add onto the whole cluelessness they showed in the Olympics (finding excuses for the team losing) or during the whole Pay "scandal" (don't think that legal CBA's need to be followed).

This is the only national team I know whose fans and supporters engage in this type of behavior, and how the players both feed it and get fed off it. In reality, the soccer ladies wouldn't be able to hold the gym bags of their basketball counterparts (who are the actual definition of dominance).

 

[Dr Pepper]

FWIW I never got the "omg they aren't even singing the anthem" outrage, as if we've ever seen Connor McDavid belting out "O Canada" during pregame.