For those of you who are general soccer fans, this is of course a familiar term. It is the style that the Brazilian men's team in its glory days has played. They are considered its masters (though in some years Argentina has been considered a country that can play the beautiful game as well as Brazil). Brazil's women's team has for many years played a similar style, though it was unfortunately lacking from them in this year's WWC, at least as they played the USA in the quarterfinals. However, overall, the play of the women in this tournament, and not just that of the USA (who at times did not play as well as several other teams in this tournament, but nevertheless made it to the finals and overtime on heart, grit, athleticism and Abby Wambach), has been uplifting. Sports fans in general have seen many teams this tournament whose style and skill they can admire. Japan, of course, but France, Sweden and even Australia made favorable impacts. Germany and Brazil also remain teams that can play uplifting soccer in the women's game. The question is, can the 2011 WWC be used to market women's soccer as The Beautiful Game? There are double entendres, of course, but the question remains. Is this tournament the basis to launch a marketing campaign to sell the sport and take it to the next level? Look at the cynicism in areas of the men's game. I don't intend to disrespect their ability or superior speed and skill. But, is Paraguay's approach really a testament to the sport's greatness? http://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/blog.php?b=11820 Is the public ready to have this sport marketed, not with the "women's" qualifier, and without disrespecting the men's game, but simply on its own, as stellar sports fun?
Marketing women's soccer as "Jogo Bonito" is kind of difficult (over here, we don't use that term ourselves, we prefer "Football-Art"). Last time the men displayed that level of soccer was almost 30 years ago, except for moments of brilliance here and there. It took them almost 100 years to play like this: [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZxvYy5-ekI&feature=related"]Brasil 1982 - The 11 Greatest Goals of Brasil 1982's Magic 11‏ - YouTube[/ame] I predict its gonna take the brazilian women even more to come even close. Perhaps the american girls who are in a much more advanced state of development can do it...
