Woman…can…soccer..too?
Hello and welcome BACK to our MANY FANS. As you may (or, if you’re a self-centered MAN who only cares about MAN sports, may not) know, the WOMEN’S WORLD CUP will take place this summer and we, your trusted guides, are here to prepare you. We know what you’re thinking-- didn’t we JUST talk about a World Cup??? Yes. and in case you forgot, we CORRECTLY PREDICTED VICTOIRE POUR LA FRANCE (LIBERTÉ ÉGALITÉ MBAPPÉ ALLEZ LES BLEUS) and thus we are here to bestow upon you, once again, our sage knowledge. (Also SWAG ASS POSTER AMIRITE)
The Women’s World Cup, taking place every 4 years, consists of 24 teams (compared to 32 for the men, SEXISM) and the winner gets a thicc trophy. You might know this because the USWNT held it in 2015. And then we brought it to a parade. And then we brought it to the White House. The cup is set up the same, with Group Stages preceding Knockout Rounds. The rules of the game are the same, except that if anyone on the team gets their period, the match is automatically cancelled, obviously! In general, the Women’s World Cup is not NEARLY as popular as the Men’s. There are a few reasons for this BLATANT SEXISM that we want to highlight before diving deeper.
A Lack of Widespread Support
Even though we make up half of the world’s population, women rarely have the same access to sports, even as international a sport as soccer. This lack of investment/involvement is twofold: some countries and areas do not permit women to even participate in sports (this is called discrimination and it is bad), and others just fail to provide opportunities.
Furthermore, even if most big sportsy countries like USA and France and England have women’s leagues, not many people (read: 0 people.) watch them (Personally our parents have like 20 sports channels and I have never seen a women’s soccer game on tv). This stems from our tendency to underline that men’s leagues are the ones that matter. Then we get a vicious circle where people don’t watch because these teams can’t grow (poorly funded) but then sponsors don’t want to invest in them because no one’s watching and so on, ad infinitum.
By taking the time to watch and learn about the Women’s World Cup, you’re telling FIFA that the women’s game matters, and this encourages investment and raised awareness so basically, we are going to end sexism by watching this tournament. AND you don’t have to wait 4 years to see another world cup! So BONUS
Differences in “Quality” of Play
Sometimes, the ladies are a BIT slower than the broskis (probably because boobs make it hard to run!). So the game moves slower and, in the eyes of some misogynistic male soccer aficionados, this makes it “boring”. To those assholes: Please let me know when you have children so I can find them, look them in the eye, and tell them that unless they run at the Mbappe speed of 22 mph, their parents will never care about their accomplishments because apparently speed is the only measure of how something can be INTERESTING. Plus this makes 0 sense coming from Americans who come from a country where the most popular sport literally takes 3.5 HOURS it’s like ALL DAY SUNDAY JFC. Also people like GOLF that shit’s slow af but I digress..
More importantly, this question of quality comes back to investment in the sport. Women’s games happen at shitty locations? That’s because the governing body is saving good locations for the men. The fields are made of turf, and not grass? That’s because apparently it doesn’t matter that turf is shit to play on, if it’s women playing.
Obviously you didn’t come here for a lecture on sexism in sports, but we just wanted you to be conscious of these factors as you tune in, especially after the explosive best-world-cup-ever we all watched last summer. ALLLONS ENFANTS DE LA PATRIEEEEE LE JOUR DE GLOIRE EST ARRIVE Note the differences, and then think complexly about the larger issues (like THIS in the USA) that influences them! Also it’s not all bad news because Nike made some SWEET KITS this time around so despite these big issues, the game is developing and growing!
Ready to watch and want all the deets?! Let’s GO ladies.
When: THIS SUMMER. Specifically June 7th- July 7th. *See the full schedule here*
Group Stages- June 7th-20th Round of 16- June 22-25th
Round of 8- June 27-29th Semi Finals- July 2nd-3rd
FINALS- July 7th (and losers play for 3rd on the 6th)
Where: LA FRAAAAANCEEEEEEEE that’s right folks after their GLORIOUS VICTORY last summer the one and only France will be home to all the sports excitement this time around. RAMENEZ LA COUPE A LA MAISON ALLEZ LES BLEUS And they didn’t even have to bribe FIFA to secure this bid like some people *cough* Russia *cough* Qatar *cough*. However hosting the Women’s World Cup is, you know, less of a big deal apparently (which is why these countries are just now vying for 2023 and Qatar has been problematically preparing for like 4 years now) (thinking about the qatari cup is literally making me sweat right now I cannae even)
Super quick, just to review, a little bit of background history on the Ladies World Cup:
The history of the Women’s World Cup is a long and storied struggle against sexism and by long and storied I mean short and often overlooked. Even with an unofficial cup in 1971 in Mexico, coincidentally the same year the FA (British governing body) lifted their ban on lady football, FIFA didn’t dip their toes into the water until 1988, when they held an experimental cup in China. After seeing the boss-ass ladies of Norway and Sweden fight it out for a fake title, they decided that maybe women COULD play sports (dubious!) and planned for the first official cup in 1991. Since then the Women’s Cup has doubled from 12 participating teams to 24, and it has taken place ALL AROUND THE WORLD if by that you mean mostly Europe and the USA. An interesting difference between the Men and Women’s winners to note: Brazil, who boasts 5 men’s trophies, holds NONE from the women’s tournament. This is a trend with male vs female South American teams. The Germans are still crazy good though.
(in case you forgot: the first Men’s Cup was in 1930. But it also seems to be rigged more often, if you ask me)
We know, we know, you’re like, “Katrina, Elena shut UP about all this other stuff I want to talk about Megan RAPINOE!” Ok bitch calm DOWN we all want to bask in the glory of the U.S team we GET IT. But we also want to look at this world cup in CONTEXT especially considering how hard these players are fighting to receive the same respect the men do. But now that we got all that crap out of the way, we can talk GROUPS. Check our next post for the down and dirty details on all the gals coming to france this summer.
