*Today’s edition will be slightly shorter after three games, a podcast and now a Barbie/Oppenheimer double bill in the cinema. Review to follow tomorrow.
Just four days into this World Cup we’re already getting a sense of what the lasting legacy of this tournament might be.
The first round of games have been packed with tight contests and even a few upsets.
New Zealand set the tone beating Norway in the opening game. It’s hard to really describe just how much of David versus Goliath occasion that was. New Zealand had been to five World Cups and never won a game, captain Ali Riley had played in four of them. New Zealand had only won one game in 12 months, that was a friendly against Vietnam before the tournament. Against all odds they pushed Norway aside like they were tournament newcomers.
That dramatic opener was followed by tight and competitive games between Australia and Ireland, England and Haiti, Sweden and South Africa and France and Jamaica.
The expanded 32-team World Cup was always going to create nerves about big scorelines and potential drubbings at this tournament. There are eight World Cup debutants and some of those teams are made up of amateur players, college athletes and there are plenty of teenagers.
But what this World Cup has proved even in just the first few days of competition is that the gap is closing in women’s football around the world. There were signs of this progress at a global level in 2019 and on a regional level last year with South Africa and Morocco making the Women’s African Cup of Nations Final, the first time Nigeria hadn’t featured or won it since 2012.
This World Cup might not signal a complete changing of the guard in women’s football - after all, we might see USA win it for a third consecutive time and a fifth time overall- but it will have showcased how countries round the world are closing the gap on women’s football’s most developed nations and they’re doing it pretty much with raw talent alone.
We’ve seen in the lead up to this tournament just how under resourced and under invested some of these national teams are. The lack of investment from federations has not just led to teams protesting, its stagnated the growth of whole entire programmes. So many federations are sitting on a goldmine of talent but are not unlocking the potential of their athletes.
Uefa, with the richest nations, have got a headstart and reaped success as a result. The US has had the money, college system and Title IX to set it on the path to victory. Plenty of the nations that have arrived at this World Cup have done so in spite of their federations not thanks to their support or investment.
Once CONCACAF, CAF and even the Oceania Football Confederation wake up and start investing in women’s football, the rest of the world should be very scared.
Something to listen to….
There are two great podcasts covering some of the untold important stories at this World Cup, especially the stories of black women competing in the World Cup. Diaspora United and the Shea Butter FC Podcast are two US-based podcasts that centre their coverage around black women, including black women from across North America, the Caribbean and Europe.
Check them out!