Women's World Cup Lookback

This post was full intended to be written quite a while ago but things got busy and it kept getting shelved.  The good news is now I can write about the WWC with a bit of distance and hopefully give a more assessment but lets face it no matter how long I wait it will still be my own skewed view. 

The first thing that I have to say is that this summers Women's World Cup is the most enjoyable FIFA event outside of a men's world cup that I have ever watched.  On top of that I will even go as far as to say that on the whole it was every bit as good as WC2010 in South Africa.  That might seem like a huge statement for me to make but this WWC really did have every single thing you could ask for in a football tournament.  It had some fairly big upsets, it had great story lines, and underdog champion, and most importantly it had a whole lot of quality playing. 


The Women's world cup was not plagued by all kinds of blowouts, the worst scorelines were 4 goals wins including the one that France got over Canada, and it did not have the issues with diving and simulation that so often destroy the credibility of the men's game at the highest levels.  So me the Women's game may be at a slower pace, the shots may be less powerful, and in many cases the keeping is not as great but this year that did not ruin it for me.  It was nothing like watching women's hockey, which is something I can only do every four years and then only Canada's games, in fact I found myself trying to catch every game possible.  For the first time in my life I was watching rebroadcasts of games that did no involve United which is saying a whole lot since I normally cannot stand watching a game at all if I already know the score.  The games were good enough to keep me interested long after Canada were eliminated and in fact the success of this World Cup is going to keep me coming back to the Women's game for years to come.

Another positive thing about the WWC is that it satisfied my need to dislike many of the traditional soccer powers as well as my constant desire to cheer against the Americans.  The fact that Germany and Brazil did not make to the finals made me quite happy and even if the US went all the way to the final watching them lose to Japan was so satisfying.  Yes I would have loved the event even more if Canada had done better but I think I actually enjoyed it more this way, once I overcame the crushing pain of once again seeing Canada come up short, as I was able to just sit back and enjoy the games and just appreciate the skill on display.

Speaking of Japan, them winning the WWC was a storyline that you could hardly even dream up.  They are of course a very good side and would have been among the contenders to make it to the semifinals for most knowledgeable fans but picking them to win it all would have been quite a long shot.  Japan was a country in need of a good storyline after a really rough year from which they are still struggling to recover and their women's team delivered.  Just their showing in the final match against the United States shows that they were a side driven to succeed and every time the US wasted a scoring chance you just got that feeling that Japan were somehow destined to win the game.  Then each time they fought back I could not help but support them.  By the time the match made it to penalties I had gone from cheering against the USWNT to cheering for Japan and the only way I could have been happier with the winner would have been if it had been Canada.

With all that praise I do have to add that their is still a long ways to go in the Women's game.  The quality of the players is only going to continue improving, the depth of the competition should keep getting better (it has to with the tournament field expanding for 2015).  The other area where the game is going to need to see improvement is officiating.  For the most part it was good during the tournament but there are a few terrible moments that are going to stand up as glaring marks on the event.  The handball that was not called in the Australia match will be one of the moments that most people will remember but I do hope that with a little more time people who watched the event forget that some of the reffing was poor and instead only remember this event as being something special and great fun to watch.

I can hardly wait for 2015 now when with any luck I will be going to at least a couple of matches.  I can now safely say that I am a supporter of Women's soccer and that is a big statement for someone who has once been accused of being a sports sexist.