Anonymous wrote:
I spent some formative years in the UK, where sportsmanship was an important concept - an ideal closely linked to the old-fashioned notion of what a "real" gentleman does when his opponent is clearly weaker than he.

These women would benefit from a lesson in sportsmanship.

1. This isn't the UK
2. European standards shouldn't be the standard for others (I think we have enough of that, thanks)
3. It's insulting to play down. They are adults and should be treated as such. How embarrassing would it have been for the professional Thai team to see their opponent play left footed, pass around football as if they didn't even garner the respect of the US team's full effort.

At MOST the US could have put in their second string so the starters would be rested and not get hurt by even that is embarrassing

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think this dislike of women celebrating like this is so disgusting. These women are ultra competitive and want to win and win big and deserve to celebrate the way they want, without all the disdain You all suck.

At the request of the admin, I am moving my comment from a different thread to this one:



I don't have a problem with the unearthly pounding that the US Women put on Thailand. I understand the necessity of it, and though it was sad for Thailand, it is FIFA that bears the onus for this for the differential rule and for expanding the field to include teams like Thailand to begin with.
I do, however, have a problem with people like Jill Ellis and Abby Wambach who fall back on the old " Would you be criticizing a men's team if they won like this?" The answer is YES.
There is inequity between men and women in sports yes, but this tired line doesn' ALWAYS work. Save it so it matters when it does. 13-0 will always draw criticism.

Only from snowflakes. These are adults not 7 year olds.

I'm so tired of hearing that tired old drum be beat about Rapinoe. It makes me not want to in order support the very American tradition of free speech.

and how "classy" to comment on the players' haircuts. No one ever does that after a single men's game in any sport whatsoever.

The goal differential only counts if you are tied in the group standings. If the US were confident they could beat Chile and Sweden they wouldn't have had to run up the score. The top 2 team advance. Why is the US worried about goal differentials? There is no reason to celebrate each goal when you are up by over 10 goals. I wouldn't want to be stranded in a cave with the us national team.

There is nothing wrong with the result, goal differential matters. They hate us because we’re damn good and they’ll like us when we win. I thought some of the celebrations especially at the end were over the top, but that is their prerogative and if you don’t want them doing that, stop them, beat them. But then again, all great teams are arrogant.

Something I did notice after the final whistle was that our girls were very gracious in comforting the Thai players. Keeping in mind that Thailand beat Cambodia 11-0 last year in a continental tournament, I don’t think people should be up in arms about it. The national team work damn hard to be as good as they are. Thailand will come out of this experience a better team. Nothing like getting completely throttled to give you a big wake up call and having evidence of breakdowns that you can work on fixing.

I wish our USMNT were half as good.

My DD played a game in which they crushed the other team. Because it was a tournament, they did continue to score, but she said when she came off, by the end of the game, no one enjoyed it any more. By the 7th goal, it wasn't any fun and because it was so easy to score on them, the goals didn't feel meaningful.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When you score a goal in a World Cup, then you can tell someone else not to celebrate. Did you also complain when Germany hammered Brazil 8-0, or was that okay because it was the men? Or because it was against a traditional powerhouse?

Germany was up 5-0 at half and won 7-1 vs Brazil. US up 3-0 at half and win 13-0. Don't see a difference? Germany kept playing, but understood what mattered is maintaining and improving their quality of play. US women play checkers; Germany's men play chess.

Australia beat American Samoa 31-0 with Archie Thompson scoring 13 goals. They also beat Tonga 22-0. Do you care to explain the difference?

I mentioned "quality of play" and you respond by bringing up Australia? This is football, not Australian Rules Football.

Anonymous wrote:Dh played D1 soccer in college. He thinks the score is great. His comment was that this was the World Cup and scores matter. All teams are mostly evenly matched since this is the world finals and all should bring their A game. He felt like Thailand threw in the towel too quickly.

Teams aren't all that evenly matched on the women's side. DH doesn't know what he's talking about.

Anyone here watch college football? Ever see the scores in the early season games when the top 10 teams play the cupcake teams? 70-0 is not unsual. Anyone watch USA men’s or women’s basketball in the Olympics or Worlds? Same kinda thing. If you let off the gas you disrespect your opponent even more.

Anyhow, on to the next match.

Dh played D1 soccer in college. He thinks the score is great. His comment was that this was the World Cup and scores matter. All teams are mostly evenly matched since this is the world finals and all should bring their A game. He felt like Thailand threw in the towel too quickly.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Other countries don’t encourage and support young girls to play sports the way people in the US do. NPR did a story last week about how few girls in France play soccer- they are encouraged to dance but not to do sports that are seen as aggressive.

If you are in a country that has fewer girls playing sports, it is more difficult to have enough women playing at a high enough level to be competitive in the World Cup.

Um, France is the co-favorite in the tournament.

Still holds. So in France there are fewer girls playing and they receive less support, but at the same time they know how to teach children how to play soccer. And as countries that know how to play soccer build their female player pools, I predict that the USWNT will end up. in the same relative position as the USMNT.

France has the highest paid women's league in the world. They are serious conetender's in the women's UEFA every year. PSG and others have professional academies for girls.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wonder why the US is in such a weak group to begin with. Did anyone in their group ever make it out of the group stage? Seems a little contrived

Doesn’t the number one ranked team play the weakest team at the beginning of a tournament?

I thought that’s how it is always done. It is how they do it in men’s sports.

Not in the world cup. The host for example is usually given an easy group to help them make it to later rounds. See who Brazil played in the last one.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When you score a goal in a World Cup, then you can tell someone else not to celebrate. Did you also complain when Germany hammered Brazil 8-0, or was that okay because it was the men? Or because it was against a traditional powerhouse?

Germany was up 5-0 at half and won 7-1 vs Brazil. US up 3-0 at half and win 13-0. Don't see a difference? Germany kept playing, but understood what mattered is maintaining and improving their quality of play. US women play checkers; Germany's men play chess.

Australia beat American Samoa 31-0 with Archie Thompson scoring 13 goals. They also beat Tonga 22-0. Do you care to explain the difference?

Anonymous wrote:
I spent some formative years in the UK, where sportsmanship was an important concept - an ideal closely linked to the old-fashioned notion of what a "real" gentleman does when his opponent is clearly weaker than he.

These women would benefit from a lesson in sportsmanship.

Maybe the UK men can take a lesson from our USA women on how not to be such a b....

Anonymous wrote:
I spent some formative years in the UK, where sportsmanship was an important concept - an ideal closely linked to the old-fashioned notion of what a "real" gentleman does when his opponent is clearly weaker than he.

These women would benefit from a lesson in sportsmanship.

This sounds pretty sanctimonious, particularly given that England''s men's national team put a 13-0 drubbing on Ireland in 1882. So the old-fashioned notions of what a real gentlemen do to clearly weaker opponent are divorced from what real gentlemen from England historically did to weaker opponents.