Maybe This Rout Leads to Success
LANDOVER, Md. — What do you call a Women’s World Cup soccer tournament without the invariable trespassers and hangers-on and other assorted stragglers whose credentials deserved to be pulled at the entrance gate?
The quarterfinals.
You didn’t see it mentioned in any of the “This Is My Game, This Is My Future, Watch Me Play” promotional literature, but, truth be told, a 16-team Women’s World Cup, at this stage in the game’s evolution, is too large by half. This isn’t only one man’s opinion; these are raw statistics, lifted straight from the scoreboards from major football stadiums across America:
Brazil 7, Mexico 1.
Norway 7, Canada 1.
China 7, Ghana 0.
Russia 5, Japan 0.
Germany 6, Mexico 0.
Six teams--Denmark, Mexico, Japan, Canada, Australia and Ghana--went winless during the first round.
Mexico, playing with a spate of passport-nationals imported from Upper California, was outscored in its three games, 15-1. Canada, the weak sister to the north, scored three goals and yielded 12. Ghana was gone in a flash, getting pummeled, 10 goals to one. Even Denmark, which traditionally has held its own against Scandinavian powers Norway and Sweden, looked overmatched here, getting outscored, 8-1.
Two other teams, Italy and North Korea, booked passage home Sunday. Italy did beat Mexico--something to trumpet through the streets of Milan, no doubt--but its stultifying eight-players-behind-the-ball-at-all-times tactics were a drag on the tournament. Yes, in Italy, the women play soccer like the men--and isn’t it about time for a nationwide “Goals Are Good” public-service campaign over there?
North Korea was the only non-qualifier to acquit itself here. World Cup first-timers, the Koreans upset Denmark, nearly tied Nigeria and played gamely against the Americans, holding the tournament favorites scoreless for 55 minutes. Then again, they were so lightly regarded that U.S. Coach Tony DiCicco used Sunday’s match to start four reserves with little risk to the inevitable final outcome.
Eight teams, two World Cup victories among them.
Their inclusion in this tournament didn’t make for good soccer.
But it was good for international women’s soccer, if growing the sport throughout the world is as important an objective as the World Cup organizers say it is.
“The future of football is feminine,” FIFA President Sepp Blatter has said.
If that is true, the present needs to slide-tackle some global biases against women, and women athletes in particular, that are sadly lodged in the past.
In too many countries where soccer is religion, women playing soccer is considered blasphemy.
In Mexico, women’s Coach Leonardo Cuellar is forever scrambling for practice fields because the Mexican federation is on record that the women’s national players are fourth-class citizens--relegated, in terms of priority, behind the men’s team and the national under-21 and under-17 boys’ teams.
In Nigeria, goalkeeper Ann Chiejine is considered a feminist icon because she dared contest the antiquated stereotype that playing a sport as strenuous as soccer impedes the female reproductive process. Chiejine is a glowing example for the counter-argument. A mother of two, she is a charismatic team leader for the Super Falcons and one of the flashiest goalies in this World Cup.
Even in Italy, where a women’s professional soccer league has been running since the 1970s, the female game is not taken seriously by the soccer-mad masses. After playing before a crowd of 17,102 that didn’t fill one-fifth of the Rose Bowl, Italian striker Patrizia Panico marveled at the size and enthusiasm of the audience.
“In Italia, it is different from the States,” she said. “Here, soccer is maybe more important for the women than it is for the men.”
Of the eight countries moving on to the quarterfinals, only two--Brazil and Germany--have ever won the men’s World Cup. The three consensus favorites for the women’s trophy--the United States, China and Norway--are traditional wallflowers at the highest level of the men’s game. And, of geopolitical note, only two quarterfinalists--Brazil and Nigeria--hail from the Southern Hemisphere.
Julie Foudy, U.S. midfielder, has a theory for this.
“I have found that the farther south you go, the machismo level seems to go higher,” Foudy says with a laugh.
Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Colombia--all traditional bastions of soccer, none of them with an entry in the Women’s World Cup. Same for Spain, which fielded a women’s team for the exercise of World Cup qualification, a team that went 0-4-2.
And though located well north of the equator, England, which invented the sport and relishes it as the domain of lads, lager and studs-up tackling, has long looked down its ruddy nose at the idea of girls having a go at their manly game.
“My husband’s English,” Foudy says, “and when I met his father, the first thing he said to me was, ‘You play football?’
“I said yes.
“ ‘And you hit it with your head?
“I told him, yes--and we play with the same size goals, and we wear cleats. . . . “
Foudy recalls a U.S. team tour stop in England a few years back. A sit-down session with the local media was enlightening, from both perspectives.
“The idea of women playing football was completely foreign to them,” Foudy remembers. “The reporters couldn’t understand it--’Your team is so popular in the States.’ Then they saw us play. They were blown away.”
England failed to qualify for the Women’s World Cup, but Foudy happily notes that the English soccer federation has begun to devote significant resources to improving the state of the women’s game.
“Talk about changing an attitude,” Foudy says. “There now seems to be a whole new mentality there about women playing soccer.”
That, bottom line, is what this Women’s World Cup is about: spreading the word, breaking prejudices, opening minds.
If that means a few 7-1 first-round blowouts along the way, the missionaries of women’s soccer here will tell you that’s a bargain at twice the price.
UP NEXT
Wednesday at San Jose
China vs. Russia
Norway vs. Sweden
****
Thursday at Landover, Md.
U.S. vs. Germany
Brazil vs. Nigeria
****
Semifinals, Sunday, Foxboro, Mass., and Palo Alto
Championship, July 10, Rose Bowl
