In 1950, the England men’s team suffered a shock 1-0 defeat in their first ever meeting with the United States. It was a seismic event that sent shockwaves through world football. Tonight’s meeting of the same two nations, this time in the semi-final of the Women’s World Cup, could prove equally important. The tournament has captured the imagination, with millions tuning in for England’s games. Now, they face the most successful side in women’s football history for a place in the final. Here are eight worth knowing about tonight's match the tournament overall.
1. This game will probably decide who wins the tournament
England and the USA have the two most prolific attacks and the two best defences at the tournament so far. Since the first Women’s World Cup in 1991, which they won, the United States have never finished lower than third. England’s success has come later – with renewed professionalism entering the game since the launch of the domestic Women’s Super League in 2011 – but has borne fruit lately. This is their third consecutive major tournament semi-final, after the European Championships in 2017 and the previous world cup in 2015.
2. This tournament could change the whole sport
In the 1990s, the influx of television money fundamentally changed English football. Clubs were able to attract foreign coaches, who brought with them alien concepts such as “nutrition” and “not going to the pub before a game”. Players got fitter, matches got faster and tactics changed as a result. Instead of physical strength, more technical players who could quickly bring the ball under control thrived in this new environment, where there was less space for errors.
The same process could happen in women’s football. Viewing figures on television and in stadiums are dwarfed by the men’s game – BT Sport’s women’s matches attract an average of 57,000 viewers, compared to 990,000 for Premier League games. But cheap tickets and a family friendly environment could draw new crowds whose interest has been piqued by this tournament. Increasing professionalism has already helped both England and the United States reach this stage, and increased viewership could spread that change around the game further.
3. Win or lose, the players will be treated differently
This particular tournament is drawing millions of viewers, with England’s progress capturing the attention in a similar fashion to last summer. Festival goers even took time away from tending to their sunburn to watch the action on a big screen at Glastonbury. But one place where that may not be reflected is on the back pages.
An analysis of British newspapers during the 2015 World Cup found that although the amount of coverage of the tournament had improved from the 2011 edition, with most papers publishing several stories a week, the tone of the writing was somewhat different. They found, for example, that tabloid newspapers were more likely to refer to female players by their first name than their surname. On the whole, however, the coverage of women’s football was more positive than that of men’s players – with few references to appearance, or personal life – although that may be partly because at the time the women’s team were doing much better than their counterparts. Tonight we’ll see if they can continue that record.
4. Women’s football is getting more competitive
Although the Thailand team who lost 13-0 to the United States might disagree, the stats suggest that the Women’s World Cup has been getting more competitive. In the 1991 Women’s World Cup, teams were only within one goal of their opponents for 64 per cent of the time, compared to 90 per cent at the men’s competition held the previous summer. By the 2015 World Cup, women’s team were within one goal for 81 per cent of the time, compared to 87 per cent at the 2014 men’s competition.
5. The US have spread their goals around more evenly
England’s Ellen White has surpassed the pre-tournament favourites to sit joint top of the scoring charts with five goals, and her ‘goggles’ celebration is quickly becoming iconic – it was even remarked upon by US coach Jill Ellis in a pre-match press conference. But the Lionesses may wish their scoring was more spread around the team – White has scored almost half of England’s goals. The United States, on the other hand, have had eight different scorers – with no player responsible for more than a quarter (although that has been skewed by the heavy win over Thailand).
6. The US owe some of their success to an obscure law change
In 1972, Richard Nixon’s administration passed an obscure piece of legislation known as Title IX, which has had a profound impact on women’s football. Title IX helped ensure greater parity between levels of funding for, and participation in women’s sport when compared to men at college level. If an Ivy League university wanted to hire a star coach for its men’s basketball team, they had to put a similar amount of cash behind women’s sports programmes too. That led to a massive increase in participation in women’s sports, with football a major beneficiary. When the United States set up its women’s team in the 1980s, it had a large pool of college players to choose from.
7. England’s women are trying to play with the same style as the men
In 2014, after another failure at a major tournament for the men’s team, the Football Association decided to take drastic action. Inspired by the strong playing identities of Spain and Italy, they implemented a strategy dubbed ‘England DNA,’ which rested on building attacks from the back, and playing with confidence – among more nebulous desires to create socially responsible young athletes. The plan was implemented across all age groups as part of a plan to win the World Cup in 2022, and bore early fruit with the run to the semi-final last year. When Phil Neville took charge of the women’s side, he tried to implement the same risk-taking approach, with patient build up play from the back – you’ll see his team patiently building from the centre-backs.
8. But that might not be the best approach
However, history suggests that building from the back may not be the most efficient approach. An analysis of every goal scored at 2015 Women’s World Cup found that most goals originated from team’s winning the ball in the middle third of the pitch, with a very short time (around 12 seconds) then elapsing before the ball hitting the back of the net. The paper also reveals that women’s teams were slightly more likely to rely on crossing the ball from the wings than men’s at the equivalent tournament, but that overall there weren’t too many differences in the types of goals that were scored.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
