Women’s Soccer: Full of Suspense with Lots of Action

The women’s soccer world is rapidly becoming a level playing field because there is no permanent winner or loser. Many teams are playing very close games in the FIFA Women’s World Cup soccer tourney that opened on September 10 in China.

Last year’s champion Germany won 11-0 against Argentina in the opening match, but other than that, three matches held in groups A and B on September 11 all ended in a tie.

The North Korean team, which is one of the strongest in Asia, tied 2-2 against the world’s number one American team, and in group A, the Japanese and English teams, ranked 10th and 12th respectively in the world, also finished the game in a 2-2 tie. In group B, Sweden, ranked the 3rd in the world, tied 1-1 against Nigeria, which ranks 24th in the world, generating unusual results.

Women’s soccer is more than 100 years old but was not popular in most of the 20th Century because it was not “feminine” enough. It was only after the mid-1980s when women’s soccer started gaining popularity.

The U.S. launched the first women’s professional soccer team in 1985, dominating the soccer world. In Asia, China, North Korea and Japan started to invest heavily in the sport, while Norway and Sweden in Europe have had well-organized women’s soccer clubs for a long time.

Sixteen years after the first women’s soccer World Cup, however, there were full-fledged signs of a leveling off in how players fare. The FIFA website explained the trend, saying, “It just shows how globalized women’s soccer is becoming.”

The skills of players are rapidly evolving also. The match on September 11 was comparable to that of the men’ game in that women’s players were deftly engaged in deep tackles, accurate passes, and strong shots. Nowhere could spectators see slow, false steps players were making like those a decade ago. This may be related to what one expert on North Korea’s women’s soccer team said: “The North Korean women’s soccer team practices only with male teams.”

kimsk@donga.com