Women’s World Cup in Full Swing
So the Women’s World Cup started this week and frankly, aside from David Beckham, it’s all my kid sister has been talking about for weeks. I haven’t been too excited, myself. Why would I be? There’s been little to no promotion of it. The tournament would have come and gone without my knowing if it hadn’t been for my sister. I love soccer. I have since I was 5 years old. Unfortunately, I just cannot get into the women’s games as much as with the men’s. I suppose it’s because you hear so much more about the men with the coverage of the various leagues and the player’s are more “high profile”. I watched some of the women’s games live back in 1999, when the World Cup was hosted here in the states and I usually try to catch the highlights. The women just don’t get the support they deserve.As I said, my excitement for this World Cup has been noticeably lacking. That is, until I watched some of today’s highlights and then rewatched the TIVO’d games at home. I have to say these ladies grabbed my attention. I saw some amazing shots, one in particular by a Chinese player, Song Xiaoli in the closing moments of regulation time. It was a scorcher of a volley from at least 20 yards out into the far post, upper corner. It was pretty freakin’ sweet.
So, my curiosity piqued I went in search of more highlights, articles, images, etc to become more involved. I’ll be honest, it was rediculous how little info there was. I went to foxsoccer.com, which during the last men’s World Cup had a good amount of information. I also visit the site regularly to get my fix on the Premiere League. It took me a few moments to find the small button hidden amongst the ad infested site to get to any info about the World Cup. There was plenty about Euro qualifying matches, but nothing on the current tounament. In my opinion, at least one headline on the main page should have said something about the women’s games.
My disappointment did not end there, though. When I finally managed to navigate to the appropriate section, the area seemed only minimally stocked with information. Yes, there were scores and fixtures. But there was only one picture that was not part of an advertisement.
Much of my further searching faired little better. Finally, I ventured to the “soccer source” and luckily FIFA.com is a much more respectable source.
I suppose my point in all of this is: it’s going to take a lot more than bringing pretty boy David Beckham to the Galaxy to get people more involved in soccer in this country. We really need to promote men and women equally and find more productive ways to do so. I mean, does the Fox Soccer channel really need to dedicate a weekly “news” program to Beckham? How much do we really need to know?
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