World Cup 2019 - General Discussion

Interesting article for sure. It has insights usable in discussions around the USmNT in other threads. Gonna post this there as opinion accelerator!

 

Interesting stats on women and girls participation in soccer in European countries:

#FIFAWWC
Female players registered in Europe:
🇩🇪209,713 (1:396)
🇸🇪179,050 (1:57)
🇳🇱153,001 (1:113)
🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿106,910 (1:520)
🇫🇷106,612 (1:628)
🇳🇴100,066 (1:53)
🇪🇸31,831 (1:1,474)
🇮🇹23,196 (1:2,608)
🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿10,913 (1:497)

— Arkaitz ♘ (@ArkaitzVDB) July 4, 2019

the flag symbols weren't properly replicated -
#4 is England
#10 is Scotland

🇩🇰63,294 (1:92)
🇹🇷39,233 (1:2,090)
🇫🇮29,048 (1:190)
🇧🇪25,887 (1:441)
🇷🇺23,207 (1:6,325)
🇨🇭23,119 (1:368)
🇮🇪21,980 (1:221)
🇦🇹19,153 (1:462)
🇨🇿15,473 (1:686)
🇭🇺11,430 (1:855)
🇵🇱11,125 (1:3,455)
🇮🇸7,375 (1:49)
🇺🇦5,350 (1:7,929)

— Arkaitz ♘ (@ArkaitzVDB) July 4, 2019

 

Sweden and Norway have got to be maxed out regarding their level of participation saturation.

Kudos to Italy for overwhelming, considering their really low participation saturation level.

 

I can't find the source now, but I read somewhere Norway has one of the biggest drops from total participation numbers at youth level (which is excellent) to grown-up players (+18 y/o, which is rather poor). That problem is trying to be fixed at NFF level now.

 

Number of registered players over the age of 18 in this year's World Cup teams from Europe. (This official UEFA document is from 2017).

GER: 94 198
SWE: 72 212
NED: 56 508
ENG: 37 425
FRA: 27 912
NOR: 13 726
ESP: 11 241
ITA: 11 067
SCO: 2 369

Non-WC participating countries with +4000 adult players :

BEL: 16 484
DEN: 16 248
RUS: 12 017
AUT: 7 520
CZE: 7 101
FIN: 5 189
IRL: 5 140
GRE: 4 933
POL: 4 510

 

I was too late to edit my previous post about the point I was making with Norway's small percentage of +18 players. Here are some numbers of the point I was trying to make:

Total numbers of players (over the age of 18)

GER: 209 713 (94 198) 44.9%
SWE: 179 050 (72 212) 40.3%
NED: 153 001 (56 508) 36.9%
ENG: 106 910 (37 425) 35.0%
FRA: 106 612 (27 912) 26.2%
NOR: 100 066 (13 726) 13.7%
ESP: 31 831 (11 241) 35.3%
ITA: 23 196 (11 067) 47.7%
SCO: 10 913 (2 369) 21.7%

Non-WC participating countries with +4000 players:

BEL: 25 887 (16 484) 63.7%
DEN: 63 294 (16 248) 25.7%
RUS: 23 207 (12 017) 51.8%
AUT: 19 153 (7 520) 39.3%
CZE: 15 473 (7 101) 45.9%
FIN: 29 048 (5 189) 17.9%
IRL: 21 980 (5 140) 23.4%
GRE: 6308 (4 933) 78.2%
POL: 11 125 (4 510) 40.5%

 

What exactly is meant by a "registered player" over age 18? Is a 19-year-old who is playing recreationally a registered player--or is it just 18+ year-old players on //official club or development teams//? Isn't there generally a pretty serious drop-off in participation as kids move into their middle and late teens? Many are not good enough to continue on with serious soccer; others lose interest or find other things to do. I mean, aren't most players who might have future pro or NT potential pretty well identified by 15-18 years old? I'm sure there are cases of late-bloomers, but the talented kids have usually emerged by then. That said, I guess having a higher percentage of 18+ is preferable as you might get a few players who are late developers--and meanwhile of course a lot of the kids who are phenoms at age 14 tend not to pan out after all.

 

All players in the KNVB competitions are registrated players. You cannot play in club competitions without being registered.

 

It's only a small portion that are part of the "serious" players pool. There's a rather warped vision of foreigners that all our kids are in some sort of academy. Nope, they're not. The players that go into the academies are in cooperation with local amateur clubs being sifted out from the teams they play in.
So primarily the kids play for fun and when noticed to be better than normal are reported to the affiliated pro club to have a look.

Edit: I'm talking about the Dutch situation

 

Registered players is a funny one. When I regularly played in 5, 6 and 7 a side leagues I was never registered with the FA. Some of the teams/clubs involved were quite well run, with pre-season training, etc but as these competitions were not run by the FA so no need for registration. The referees were FA qualified/registered but didn't need to send reports to the FA. Of course some of the players played 11 a side at the weekend and were registered through that. I expect that the requirement to register varies between countries. We also used to hire pitches for our own private use, no registration there.

In those countries with a high percentage of adult registered players compared to registered children I wonder if the need to register child players is lower. Perhaps you can play organised football in Italy as a child without registering?

 

I read that The Netherlands is seriously interested in hosting the 2027 WWC. It's early days but the KNVB had already had preliminary discussions with FIFA. I imagine that FIFA must first get things finalized for 2023!

 

Three (3) WWC in Europe within 16 years (5 quads)?

Here's what some people are predicting here:
https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/candidates-for-2023-wwc.2018120/page-4

2023 : Australia
2027: A Latin American country
2031: South Africa
2035: A European country
2039: USA
2043: An Asian country

2023 : Australia
2027: A Latin American country
2031: South Africa
2035: Japan
2039: USA
2043: A European Country

 

Those aren't predictions. Those are hopes. 16 or more years outside of Europe when Europe will (along with the US) dominate the latter stages of these tournaments. When Europe will provide good crowds. Although the US would produce bigger crowds. I support going to Latin America but it is a risk on the support side of things. And definitely on the finance side of things. Television records have been smashed for women's football across much of Europe this year. The money says Europe cannot be ignored. It would also be foolish to assume that the rise of women's football in Europe is assured. Tournaments in empty stadia would be a very bad look and I can't see that South Africa, for example, would guarantee good crowds. 2031 is the latest that it will be back in Europe.

 

A good read.

1 & 2 yes.
3 not yet, more depth required. We don't want teams scoring double figures in one match.
4 & 5 viewing figures from this tournament should encourage increased fees from broadcasters to fund investment.

 

Arguably a bit early to do this before the final but what are your thoughts on this tournament?

I think it is a major milestone in the development of the women's game. TV audiences are up because people have watched a little and not turned over. The entertainment value has breached a critical level. People who used to be dismissive are now impressed and supportive. I considered saying it was a breakthrough but I don't think that is fair. A milestone on a journey seems more appropriate. It should continue to grow quickly. A great success. A greater depth of competition and a broadening of the professional base is what is required. That is surely inevitable now.

 

Wonder what the number of viewers in the Netherlands is going to be for the Final. The semi final was the highest watched soccer match in the last 5 years with over 5 million Dutch watching.

 

Has the attendance number exceeded Canada 2015 ? I have not seen any figure yet.

 

It would be wonderful to have a Women's World Cup in Argentina, ( Argentina is one of the bids for 2023) but I do not think many spectators will go there. In addition, the local team is far from competitive and does not move many passions for now.

 

I think 32 teams could be ok, but would probably have to be a lot of European teams in those new 8 spots. I hate these tournaments where you go through as #3 in your group. North Korea, Denmark, Switzerland, Colombia, Mexico, Austria, Belgium, Iceland, Czech Republic and Portugal are all of similar quality or even better than several teams at the current WC.

 

For a 32-team World Cup, maybe something like this? I think there's enough competent teams to avoid excessive one-sided scores; not significantly more than we already saw this year anyway.

CONCACAF (5)
USA, Canada, Mexico, Costa Rica, Jamaica

CONMEBOL (4)
Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Colombia

CAF (4)
Nigeria, Cameroon, South Africa, Ghana

UEFA (12)
England, Scotland, Spain, France, Germany, Italy, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Netherlands, Switzerland, Portugal
(other contenders to qualify: Iceland, Belgium, Austria, Wales, Poland, Czech Republic, Finland, Ukraine, Russia)

AFC (6)
Australia, Japan, China, South Korea, North Korea, Thailand
*maybe leave AFC at 5 teams given South Korea and Thailand's poor results this year?)

OFC (1)
New Zealand
*make them qualify via a playoff?

 

Why would you give the World Cup to the country in this tournament has treated its soccer women /worse/ than anybody? I also don't like the idea of giving tournaments to countries where hooliganism is prevalent. They had to move the second leg of the Boco Juniors -- River Plate match last year to Madrid because of violence or the threat of violence by club fans. Stupid, uneducated fans. Of course by that measure you couldn't give a tournament to England, either. And FIFA isn't exactly know for its integrity or good decisions--see Qatar. The only feasible Latin American host country would be Brazil, and I'm not sure how ready or eager to host it would be. More multi-hour flights by teams to a stadium in steaming Amazonia?

France has been ideal for a lot of reasons--big enough for the event, but not too big, so teams and fans can travel to different cities/venues somewhat conveniently--by car or train. Nice soccer-specific stadiums and excellent pitches. There's been a lot to like.

What exactly is "Club World Cup" supposed to be?

The WWC does not need 32 teams. That means 8 more teams--and unless four of them are going to be from UEFA you'd just be adding a bunch of bad teams. But that's not the way FIFA looks at it, of course. It just sees in a bigger tournament more televised games--and, bottom line, more $$$$.

 

2023 may be one WC too soon to consider 32 teams. But aside from Thailand and Jamaica (Korea Republic had one bad game, but their other 2 results were competitive), all of the teams were fairly competitive this year. People are going to point to the 13-0 as a reason to not expand ever, but lbr- that was an extreme outlier. If we get to 2023 and there aren't any true blowouts, then 2027 would be the right time to go to 32.

 

Some nice ideas, but sounds more like big talk to me. 2 is NOT a nice idea, and it's too soon to do 3 still.

Attendance was low enough during the group stage that even selling out every single knockout phase would still see total attendance significantly below Canada. Granted, Canada really padded their numbers with double-headers, but officially France is well below.

Short* tournament between the champion clubs from each region. Currently only two confederations hold club tournaments to crown official champions, but that doesn't necessarily stop reasonable invitations from other clubs.

*in the current format of the men's CWC. It's getting utterly revamped in a few years to the chagrin of almost everyone.