The logical answer is: neither the former nor the latter! What women’s football really lacks is popularity, and popularity here means being popular among women themselves. In fact, multiple statistical studies have shown that overall, more men than women watch women’s sports, especially football. Specifically, 54 percent of women’s soccer viewers are men, compared to 46 percent of women, and most importantly, more women than women watch men’s soccer.
Of course, many believe this is due to the historical differences between men and women in sports, which until recently was a patriarchal field that prohibited women from participating. These differences are also reinforced by what some researchers call social stereotypes, such as boys who are forced to play sports and spend their childhood playing with pistols, balls and rackets, while girls spend their childhood with brides, It’s like training for their expected future role.
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This is a very good idea, especially since experience has proven some of these stereotypes to be wrong. Contrary to expectations, for example, compared to women, men showed greater emotion during exercise, expressing their feelings more intensely and frequently during moments of disappointment, heartbreak or joy. Some studies have even shown them to be quite dramatic compared to women (as you can imagine), especially when claiming injury or celebrating with colleagues and audiences.
The opposite explanation is that men’s games are watched by millions, and the larger the audience, the greater the natural desire to express and attract attention. But the real problem most men face watching women’s soccer has nothing to do with all this. Instead, it revolves primarily around the two most important elements that differentiate their sport from women’s, aggression and physical strength.
“What really separates men’s football from women’s football is physical strength. The difference is more pronounced than a difference in skill or technique.”
That’s one of the conclusions of a 2013 study by British researcher Paul Bradley of Liverpool John Moores University and four of his colleagues. The study was designed to look at the performance of 54 male and 59 female players in the Champions League based on several criteria.
Unexpectedly, the results were not surprising. There was no significant difference in the number of dribbles or touches, but female players lost possession more often and passed relatively less accurately than men. The biggest difference is not the number of meters run at all in a race, but the quality, as men show a greater ability to run compared to their female peers, with different sharpness and intensity, especially when We talk about limbs such as arms and back when we compare our opponents in the women’s game.
If you try to compare the men’s and women’s games in terms of body language, things will become clearer. The expected physical strength is reflected not only in the speed of running, but also in general motor skills. For example, males tend to use their shoulders and arms more strongly in defensive positions to hinder opponents or prevent them from advancing and jumping. Women use only their arms for balance, while they tend to hit the ball straight with their feet. Physical confrontation and showing strength are an important part of the men’s game, but not the women’s game.
In stressful and avoidant situations, men generally take more active postures than women, with their torso leaning forward and legs flexing, while women often take advantage of their relatively slender and slenderness by straightening their torso and having a relatively higher level of vision than men. The size slides between opponents.
Alexia Putlias
From this point of view, everything is different; on closer inspection you can see that women have relatively short strides when jogging and keep their arms straight most of the time with or without the ball, which is why they have more language of action than men. Not aggressive, and even less able to invoke physical struggle, confrontation, etc.
For example, Spain’s Alexia Putellas, the 2021 Ballon d’Or winner, was initially active at FC Barcelona. There are articles that say that in Alexia’s best collection, at a glance, it is almost certain that many of her moves and dodges are similar to Messi’s, especially both are left-footed, but The difference became clear after a few minutes.
Alexia Putlias named world’s best female player in 2021
For example, in some clips, Alexia dribbles the ball after being pressed from behind, and although she succeeds, anyone who has ever watched a men’s game will realize that her body position is completely wrong, and if the opponent succeeds Taking the ball out puts it in a fall situation; the torso is leaned back, the arms are outstretched, the ball is controlled with the tips of the toes, not properly anchored to the stable foot, this is the fall before the dribble is complete perfect example.
The problem here is not Alexia’s mental capacity, nor her speed of reflexes and action, but rather the fact that the Spaniard has shown extraordinary insight to create opportunities from situations that are very difficult to implement and predict, and even In jousting and one-on-one situations, Alexia has shown abilities that many men in the same position don’t. And there is no clear scientific basis for the superiority of men over women in complex mental operations, perhaps other than space-related operations.
Observing Alexia’s field of vision shows that the main problem is before the catch, where she realizes that a large part of her advantage over her peers is based on her extraordinary ability to improvise and work in tight spaces. Move freely, not after she clears the court and before she catches the ball and sees it happen. That’s one of the problems with the women’s game; defensive and offensive pre-emption is almost non-existent, so don’t expect it to happen unless in the most difficult of situations, even with someone like Alexia player.
All of this makes for a slow-paced game, where the offensive-defense conversation begins after a catch or move, so there’s plenty of time margin to catch habitual errors in body position and clearing the field. This gives the impression that when watching a solo player like Alexia, things really are going to be easier than they seem. As you watch the rest of the game, it also gives you the impression that there are some easily discernible goofy moves.
“Of course we can beat them! I think it’s obvious that men are physically stronger, but technically and capable I think we’re as good as men, at least let’s try!”
England women’s national team coach Hope Powell said in an interview with British Metro in 2014.
Sadly, Powell’s claim has not been field-tested, but it’s not about the historical advantage of men over women in sports, but about whether sports such as football suit their physical and physiological characteristics. It goes without saying that you have to remember that men are the ones who invent and make the rules.
In fact, women have managed to outpace men, or at least keep pace with them in other sports. For example, in 1996, Shauna Hogan’s bicycle ride managed to set a new record for travel time between Los Angeles and San Francisco at 19 hours and 11 minutes, a record that no man or woman has ever broken until now .
Billie Jean King has achieved similar success in tennis, and Jackie Tonawanda, known as the female version of Muhammad Ali, has achieved similar success in boxing , but the scientific evidence does not help us to hypothesize that something similar could happen in football in the future.
The first reason is of course the difference in hormonal activity between the sexes, as described in a study published in the Journal of Sports Medicine in 1986, a conclusion that has so far not been proven wrong, simply because hormones depend on Estrogen and testosterone in men and women. The latter hormone gives males the advantage of being physically strong at birth. Men, for example, have less lower body fat, 50 percent more muscle mass than women, and even deliver a higher percentage of oxygen to the muscles’ red blood cells.
Another study published in the U.S. National Library of Medicine in 1993 proved that male muscle dominance is not only quantitative, but also qualitative, responsible for so-called Explosive Power.
“Women’s upper- and lower-body strength is about 52 percent and 66 percent that of men, respectively. This is largely due to men’s different muscle composition and their different tissue types, which are larger than women’s.”
Physiological differences don’t stop there, like men’s lungs are absolutely and relatively larger, which gives them a greater ability to pump oxygen into their muscles, so they have a higher percentage of hemoglobin, which allows for faster delivery of oxygen to the body’s various parts. Based on this, scientists at NYU concluded that men are more economical and efficient than women when it comes to muscle building, and they also have more endurance in the long and short term.
All this does not prevent women’s football from attracting new audiences every day for a variety of entirely different reasons; the reasons have to do with the context of the sport itself, as opposed to a men’s sport tainted by politics, capitalism, performance-hungry and disgusting fanaticism. Than, the women’s game is still pure to the point of naivety. As an original idea not yet polluted by time, they remain sport-centric. From this perspective, women’s sports have a lot to learn from men’s sports.