W-league : The other football

The W-League: the ‘other’ football
By hittingthevalve
Today

Yesterday I went to watch a game of football. It had goalkeepers marshalling defences, neat passing, physicality, through balls that split defences, well worked goals, and some more fortunate goals. Yesterday I went to watch Canberra United play the Newcastle Jets in the W-League.

In a previous post, I highlighted the women’s game as one area of football that often gets overlooked. In one of the comments in response to that post discussing why women’s football may not be a priority area for development or one that we can base the future of football in Australia on, someone said: “People just don’t like watching women’s sport because it doesn’t look as good as men’s sport by comparison, this is not being politically incorrect, it is just stating a fact.”

Whilst I agree that we can’t solely focus of women’s football to grow the game in this country, I do disagree with people writing off women’s football because it doesn’t ‘look as good’ as matches played by males.

It only took four minutes of the game today for the case against the point above to start being made. Canberra started the game off strongly and the early pressure paid off with Van Egmond putting in a cross in between the Newcastle defenders for Munoz to latch onto and neatly complete the move by chipping the oncoming keeper with a finish that any forward would be happy with.

Newcastle didn’t give up after the early setback with most of their attacks targeting the left side of Canberra’s defence.

However, it was Canberra who struck again. Heyman ran onto a through ball down the right wing and seeing the Newcastle keeper off her line, launched the ball from outside the box towards the top left corner of the goal. With the keeper struggling to get back, the ball ricocheted off the post, into the backtracking keeper and over the line. Luck sometimes favours the brave.

Canberra continued to have the better of the chances in the first half with Shipard marshalling the play in the centre of the pitch for Canberra, but with the final kick of the half, Andrews scored for Newcastle after Canberra failed to clear a cross from the right.

With the heat coming into play in the second half, miscommunication and mishit passes began to creep in to the play of both teams. Newcastle were more patient with their build-up play, but they were unable to convert any of their chances. Canberra took a little longer to adapt to the conditions with a number of through balls missing their intended targets. Long balls and tired legs don’t often mix too well in the heat.

It was against the run of play when Munoz got her second for the afternoon and Van Egmond made sure of the result a couple of minutes before full time.

The match I saw was intelligent football played by two well drilled teams who weren’t afraid to challenge for the ball or show some individual flair with a Beckham-esque attempt from half way by Shipard, which only just went over the crossbar to land on the roof of the net, being the highlight.

I may have been lucky enough to see a great game of football played by two quality teams whilst another W-League game with different teams may not have had the same standard of football on display, but that can happen with football played by either males or females.

I believe it all comes down to what you want to get out of your football. Male sport will always get more attention, more money and more coverage and more people will watch it, but I think all football fans are missing out on an opportunity to see some quality football played by teams that contain the players that won Australia’s first major football trophy if they write off women’s football because they think it won’t look as good as football played by their male counterparts.

The W-League is still in its infancy and I think it deserves the support of football fans in this country just like the A-League. If you get the opportunity to go and see a match in person or watch one on TV, I’d encourage you to take it. You might even by pleasantly surprised by what you find.

The W-League – it’s just like watching the Socceroos.

http://www.theroar.com.au/2011/01/16/the-w-league-the-%e2%80%98other%e2%80%99-football/