Posted on 03/02/2018 2:37:17 AM PST by Berlin_Freeper
The United States women's national soccer team beat Germany 1–0 on Thursday in their opening match of the SheBelieves Cup.
The teams faced off in Columbus, Ohio, with the bad weather conditions causing both teams to play sloppily.
Megan Rapinoe was one of the game's consistent threats and scored the game's only goal in the first half to give the United States the win.
(Excerpt) Read more at si.com ...
Phil Neville’s reign as England manager got off to an impressive side as the Lionesses took France to pieces in the SheBelieves Cup.Toni Duggan, Jill Scott, Jodie Taylor and Fran Kirby were all on the scoresheet to secure a resounding 4-1 victory against Les Bleues – a result few would have predicted.
Phil Neville believes people want him to fail as England Women’s manager. The 41-year-old knows his appointment five weeks ago caused uproar in certain quarters, a situation inflamed by the recall of sexist tweets.Yet Neville spent his playing career with Manchester United, Everton and England trying to prove his worth and is determined to show his appointment was not the mistake many believe it was.
Ping!
“SheBelieves Cup”
Nothing like telling men not to bother tuning in - and telling women that female soccer is unpopular enough that they need to watch just because they’re female...
I believe SheBelieves.
I live less than five miles from the stadium in Harrison NJ where they’re playing on Monday, and this has received NO COVERAGE here. In fact, that stadium (capacity 25K) was built because when the MetroStars/Red Bulls played in Giants Stadium (capacity 79K) to the north, it was embarrassingly empty. Harrison NJ now resembles Tijuana; not a place where lesbian sports are popular.
Capacity 25K?
Sounds like a good place to watch a game.
There are lesbians playing but soccer is not a lesbian sport. Unless you want to call America a lesbian country.
Attendance has been improving.
The headline is about one of our top lesbians - who knelt in solidarity with Kaepernick (nothing American there).
Attendance for mens soccer is bad enough; for women it is much worse - aren’t they on their third league in 20 years here? You can catch international matches played in the US on TV, and they look like they are playing in empty high school stadiums (you can see the cars parked behind the ten rows of seats, which only seem to have the families/domestic partners of the players in them).
I say this as a soccer fan eagerly awaiting the World Cup in a few months.
The headline is about the only player to score a goal. Neither Megan Rapinoe nor the headline makes soccer a lesbian sport. US Soccer made a rule that players must stand after that one time Rapinoe knelt.
That attendance is is not comparable to some other sports in the US is a well known given. How many people attend national swimming competitions and do you think the people who do really care?
If womens soccer isn’t a lesbian sport, someone should share that with our media. They went from praising the “soccer moms” (Mia Hamm & co.) to putting the deviants front & center.
As for the swimming competitions, the media doesn’t even pretend anyone cares; with womens soccer, they are trying to convince us we should.
One of my young sons bought a deck of MLS cards years ago, and wouldn’t you know they slipped in female players as well. They think they’ll piggyback on the mens sport like the NBA/WNBA (where the NBA subsidizes the WNBA), but the truth is there isn’t enough money to go around. If nothing more, MLS can at least function as a retirement venue for world stars; the womens league has no such pool to pick from. Their sport is just a slower, less exciting version of a sport that is already widely viewed as slow and lacking excitement.
But then again: DC United also gets virtually no coverage. Nor do high school sports. Nor do club sports (and we produce a scattering of Olympic athletes -- Katie Ledecky, anyone -- who are totally invisible until the Olympic games). The smaller colleges are essentially blacked out as well. Georgetown and Maryland men's basketball get modest coverage if they're doing well, but they mostly disappear during lackluster seasons.
Soccer, both men's and women's, isn't the only sport playing in the shadows. I understand that newspapers are dying and probably can't afford to keep reporters on staff to cover local sports. And network tv is only interested in professional football, basketball, baseball and hockey. The assumption seems to be that everyone else can narrowcast on cable or streaming services, if they have enough of an audience to broadcast at all.
It seems unnatural to me. I am surprised that some local station hasn't made a real commitment to covering local sports. In a major metro area, one obviously can't broadcast every high school game, but I think there might be an opening for a local sports roundup show. Probably a tricky formula to get right, but no one is covering that niche.
Soccer, both men's and women's, is currently in the business of right-sizing its stadiums. The attendance is what it is. Of course soccer teams look lost playing in football arenas with most of the seats empty. The same game in a smaller stadium that looks and feels full is a different experience.
I expect that men's soccer will displace hockey as the #4 sport in the not-too-distant future. Women's soccer is in an interesting position. It is the top women's professional sport in the country. (We're talking team sports here, where one is selling league play. Golf and tennis are different critters.) The question is whether (or when) it will become the first women's professional sport to fully establish itself as a profitable, self-sustaining business. For that to happen, young women need to start buying tickets and bringing their boyfriends.
Network television has created an ingrown, dumbed down, self-referential world, and it has contaminated and degraded everything it has touched. (And not just in sports.) I now find the NFL, NBA and major college basketball and football unwatchable; the games have been prostituted for television and are a miserable imitation of the sports as they were meant to be played. If television ever got soccer over the barrel, soccer would have four television timeouts every half with a 30 second commercial break on every throw in and free kick. And then it wouldn't be soccer anymore. That's essentially what tv has done to football and basketball, and I hope the damage can be contained there.
There is a demographic clock working against soccer (for men and women) in the US, and it is plain to see here in the NYC metro area. The “replacement Americans” have no interest in the US versions of soccer, and they can follow their own “home” teams in faraway lands with their cable packages. When the MetroStars played a double-header after an international friendly (between two South American countries, fielding their B teams) in Giants stadium years ago, most of the 33K fans left after the friendly; it was the saddest thing to watch. There aren’t enough new American fans to grow either soccer fan base; right-sizing and sharing the stadiums seems like the only way to do it (at least for men).
You are over-reacting to a couple of high visibility players. Most of the women's professional soccer players are in their early to mid-20's and not yet married. But they're mostly straight (not that it's anyone's business); the question is whether they tie the knot while they're still playing. For a lot of them, getting married and having kids is the exit ramp from professional sports. That of course is one of the major differences between men's and women's professional sports.
The game markets its stars. Abby Wambach was gay. She was also the top scorer in the history of international soccer, men's or women's. She was a big storyline in the last soccer generation. So what? The previous generation was Mia Hamm, Julie Foudy, Brandi Chastain, Carin Gaberra, Shannon Boxx, etc. -- all married with kids. Now the headliners include Carli Lloyd (married), Alex Morgan (married) and Julie Ertz, half of the most celebrated sports marriage of the past year. The USWNT is now in the middle of a major youth movement, which is all to the good. They put two teenagers onto the field last night, and a lot of other players are recent college grads under 25. Obviously most of these girls aren't yet married. Most of them will get there in due time.
Yeah, there are a few gay players around. Most of them have the sense to keep their private lives off the field. The NWSL is trying to build a brand and a league. Dragging off field issues into the game is counterproductive, and most of the players are smart enough to know it.
There are lesbians playing but soccer is not a lesbian sport. Unless you want to call America a lesbian country.
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What is the ratio of lesbians to heterosexuals in the general population?
How about on the US National soccer team?
Start with the ‘married’ coach and her ‘daughter’. How has the Christian girl that spoke out against homosexuality been doing lately? Much playing time? Go to a youth game and during banter between parents speak the truth about what God says about homosexuality and let me know how it goes. Have your daughter do the same with teammates and let me know how that goes.
I can understand the dilemma faced by a dad with a daughter who plays soccer. But don’t kid yourself or learn to compromise values. Soccer and basketball have both become lesbian breeding grounds.
“How many people attend national swimming competitions and do you think the people who do really care?”
In any case, the people of this country care too much about sports - which are a mindless diversion from more important things. This country is sports obsessed. And someone can make an argument that things will get worse as soccer gains currency.
The youth movement is settling in. The U.S. back line may be a bit faster and the midfield looked solid despite missing some familiar faces. I'm looking forward to the game against France. The U.S. beat Germany last year in this tournament, and lost narrowly to England. It was France, with its attacking speed, that embarrassed us. Part of that was the three back formation with which Ellis was experimenting, but some of it was age. There's a younger crew this time around.
Injuries are still scrambling the picture but Jill Ellis seems to be inclined to emphasize youth and speed. Speed is a killer. Germany, the #2 team in the world, never really got untracked. (The weather probably had something to do with that.) Last year's experimentation was a deliberate exercise in taking risks and accepting some losses to broaden the player pool. Looks like that is about to pay off.
Thanks for sharing your opinion on the sport.
I doubt many here could keep up with their speed.
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