How is the Women's World Cup great?

I'm actually not the best person to be writing this, because this is the tail end of my days as a football fan. But there are some things that have forced me to talk about how and why the World Cup is great.

Why the men's World Cup is great.
1. Tradition. When the first World Cup came around, my youngest grandparent (and the one I was the most attached to) wasn't even alive. IT was a bygone era when Argentina and Uruguay ruled the world.

2. Each of the World Cups had a great story. The first World Cup in Uruguay that the English and many of the Europeans refused to participate in. Then the second and third World Cups which were won by Italy, partly because Italy were such a great side, and partly because everybody was worried that Mussolini would have the guys executed for not winning the World Cup. The fourth and first post-war World Cup had the legend of the Maracanaço.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uruguay_v_Brazil_(1950_FIFA_World_Cup) There was the 1954 Miracle of Berne, in which West Germany unexpectedly triumphed over the hot favourites Hungary to win the tournament. The 1958 final where one of the greatest Sweden sides lost to a Brazil side that featured a teenage Pele. (Also the first and only time a non-European side won a World Cup in Europe). The 1962 World Cup which was controversial because Chile was recovering from an earthquake. The 1966 World Cup which was notable for England actually having a great side and winning, the North Koreans shocking the Italians, and the Italians getting pelted with rotten fruit.

The 1970 Mexico World Cup, which was supposed to be one of the greatest yet, with that magical Brazil team, and England players being accused of theft. The 1974 World Cup which introduced the world to total football. The 1978 World Cup, notable at the time for pandering to corrupt dictatorships (something that by the way is true of 2018 and 2022, while 2010 and 2014 were held in corrupt countries). The 1982 football which had a great Brazilian team, but in what was supposed to be a rematch with the Italians after the 1970 final, they got dumped out by Paolo Rossi. That was the time when the debate was basically settled as to which was more important: the system or the individual. The 1986 championships, which featured some fine teams – Brazil, France, Denmark, but the one team, or rather one player who conquered all was Maradona.

The 1990 championships, a competition so infamously boring and based on defensive football that they changed the back pass rule so as to make football great again. But also notable for Camaroon bearing the flag for African football and getting knocked out a little unfairly against England in the quarter finals. 1994 with the romance of left field sides like Sweden, Bulgaria and Romania going deep into the tournament. 1998 with the fenomeno screwing up at the last hurdle, Zidane scoring with his head, and France getting their long belated first win of the tournament. Owen and Bergkamp with wonder goals, and Beckham getting sent off in a crucial match. 2002 with an unprecedented number of favourites falling by the wayside in early stages, paving the way for the dark horses South Korea, Turkey and Senegal to advance far into the tournament. And establishing a precedent for the defending champions to flop at the first hurdle. (But the final is still contested by favourites Brazil and Germany). 2006, with Zidane overcoming a Brazil team featuring Ronaldo, Ronaldinho, Kaka and Adriano, only to lose his rag in the final and get sent off after headbutting Materazzi. 2010 with the vuvuzelas and jabulani ball and one of the greatest Spain teams with their tika taka. 2014 with the unforgettable 7-1 match. And 2018 with England and Croatia going deep into the tournament. And the USA not qualifying.

3. The quality of the football is just better. This is a big plus, because one of the things that sticks out about the women's world cup is the dreadful level of defending, although you could say that defending in the men's world cup wasn't really great until the 1990s. You have the world's greatest thinkers of football playing tactical chess with each other. You don't see the women's world cup being talked about like that. Marta and Lieke Martens would have been elite players if they were guys, but any talk about them being Ronaldinho or Messi or either of the Ronaldos or Rivaldo or Luis Suarez is just off the mark. This is significant, because the level of ability even amongst the elite players is very great. Football is a sport where the very best players are much better than the merely very good ones, and until truly great players emerge from the women's game, it's a little hard to take them seriously.

4. It has a great following, that's for sure. There's been some snide remarks about all the empty seats at the women's World Cup in France. 5. Smaller teams have excelled at the World Cup. Imagine Uruguay or even Argentina winning the world championship at anything other than football. And the great sides which didn't manage to win – the Netherlands and Hungary. Belgium surely had enough talent in their side to go all the way.

Ways in which the men's world cup is falling short.
1. The women are just better looking.

2. There was the issue of “playacting”. That's controversial. First, there are many football fans who argue that playacting was something that's great about men's football, that it's the controversies that add to the drama. About whether England's third goal against Germany in the 1966 final counted (yes) or whether Maradona used his hand to cheat against England (also yes). But if there's too much playacting, then I don't think there's a question that's a bad thing. Second, the way that the Victorian English conceived the game – and they were the ones who made the rules of the game – was that fair play was extremely important. But when football spread to other countries, many of whom have surpassed England in terms of standards, winning became more important, and some level of gamesmanship was assumed to be normal and moreover contributed to the level of entertainment. Thirdly, it was noted that the women engaged less in playacting. But there was also a lot less rough play. The ladies weren't even interested in tackling.

3. Perhaps one downside of the World Cup in the era of Messi and Ronaldo is that neither of them have demonstrated their best for this tournament, as opposed to Maradona, Pele or even more recently, Zidane, Xavi and Iniesta. Whereas the women's world cup is far and away the most important tournament of the game.

4. The high stakes of the game. When the USA womens' team beat Thailand by 13 goals to nil, some people were outraged, and one of the reasons, in hindsight is that it would never have happened in the men's game. Everybody knows, the way the men's game is now, it is an unfortunate fact that playing for your country – in the men's game at least – is inextricably linked to defending your national honor. Because the men's game at the international level has become one where the result has mattered as much as how it was achieved, you've had a lot of gamesmanship. Extra time has always been controversial, because it's resulted in both teams defending so tightly because nobody wants to concede goals, and would rather prefer the lottery of the penalty shootout to losing in extra time. Many times you'd get matches which are played ultra-defensively. The World Cup finals of 2010 and 2014 were pretty dreadful, especially the former, since Holland basically set out to kick the crap out of the Spaniards. Fortunately in both occasions the better team won. Perhaps the relatively open game in 2018 was a result of Croatia reaching the finals, and knowing that they had already exceeded expectations, and they hoped to play an open game. Another way of saying all this is that the women's world cup is still in a period of relative innocence, where all the gamesmanship and dirty play hadn't crept into the game.

5. Megan Rapinoe in a way is a symbol of diversity. She was an openly gay player who had won the world cup. LGBT is one of the last taboos of the men's game. No male footballer playing in a major league has come out. Yet I'm in some strange way not that moved by her anti-Trump stance. Perhaps because attacking Trump is just way too easy. (I'll never defend him, obviously). It's more in line with what people are doing in the NBA, the NFL, so it's an American thing, not a football thing. This is not Maradona's payback for the Falklands War, which with both the hand of god and the goal of the century, actually amounts to the more compelling story. So in a way the women's game is more diverse than the men's game. In another way, the women's game is actually more racist, and this is because the men's game has spent a longer time battling racism. The USA women's team suffers from the same problem as the men's team. They aren't getting enough latinos. Everybody has to come through a system that costs money for the players, so there's a whole swarth of underclass people who might have been part of a great feeder system - much like the ones who produced 3 out of the four semi-finallists in England, Belgium and France. The ghetto to elite footballer pipeline doesn't exist in football teams of both sexes in the US, and that is holding back the development of the game.

What I have to understand is that if and when soccer catches fire in the US, there's no reason that it should, but if it does, then things will be done their way. They might have their own terminology. Major League Soccer is played using rules that are different from the European leagues. And it might be a place where the women's game - at least on an international level has equal standing with men.

It's funny that of all the women's games, football is the one that's caught on in a large way, considering that it's a gladiatorial sport. Perhaps this has to do with how football is the most popular game in the world. It's a whole new arena, considering that the other gladiatorial games - cricket, basketball, rugby - don't have the women's version having such a high profile. It's funny that the places where the women are succeeding are the ones where women have a tradition of playing sports. China has reached the final, while it's men's team struggles to even qualify for the tournament. Japan has won the world cup, while in the men's game the furthest a man's side has reached is semi-finals (and something stank about the way they did that, even though it was by all accounts a pretty good team). Unlike the men's game where Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina account for almost half of the world cups won, I don't think South American teams are going to take the women's world cup by storm. The women's game is going to develop in its own way, if it moves even more forward.

I am happy that the women's world cup has raised its profile in America. It has given the Americans a reason to care about football, and for a while disregard the tragic state of their men's game. It has given football fans around the world a reason to care about the women's game. But the standards fall so far below those of the men's game that it makes me wonder - cos I'm not a tennis fan - how badly Serena Williams will get thrashed if she were to square up to say Federer.