Argentina were (being slaughtered) at the WC already in 2007. Will be interesting to see their progress.
Asian leagues are fine right now, but they are all semi-professional. In Japan there is really only one club where the players only play football. The rest all have day jobs. My point is that is not going to change in the future. Whereas the European leagues with the American league are moving towards being fully professional or are, which means players from those nations will get better, because they have more time to train. Saki Kumagai who plays for Lyon has said the professionalism is superior in France compared to Japan by a long way. I have already stated I think more Asian players should head abroad. I can think of quite a few in the Nadeshiko League (two or three that are not in the current squad) that would be fantastic additions to almost all squads in Europe. But for whatever reason they seem to stay in Japan.
What it's true for Lyon, though, it's not necessarily true for all the clubs in France. Yes, there are some others that, with the back up of men's teams, have set up actual professional conditions, but I am not sure football player as a career is already a realistic option for all of the players in Division 1 Féminine. A question: are there official highlights of the games (I suppose yes)? Where do we post them? The single threads of each game? Or the group-dedicated threads?
That is part of it. However, there are already between 10 to 20 Japanese players (there may be fewer - blissett knows) in Europe right now, but they all play in the lower leagues of Germany and Spain. Most of these players are fringe players who are not in contention for the national team. My point is that if these lower players can go abroad why are not some of the better ones? Maybe it is just culture and language, but I wonder if it is something more? Again I am merely speculating. I do not have an answer.
Well, "knows" is a big word: even if I try to follow that situation, I lost count myself of how many Japanese players abroad there are exactly, out there. Apart from those playing in major leagues (Kumagai in France, Utsugi, Kawasumi and Nagasato in USA), there should be at least 5-6 in Spain, 2 in Germany, 2 in Austria and some other scattered around in Europe. 4-5 are in South Korea, and there are university players in some colleges in USA. For sure Japan would need more players in major leagues abroad.
Wonderful debut of the WWC. Everything was (more or less) as expected. France is a much better team than South Korea and it was evident during the whole game. Beside that, it was a great spectacle that can help the rise of WoSo across the entire world. P.S. I still think the absence of Hamraoui could hurt the French team in the long term.
In my opinion not only players from those nations. In Spain, for instance, there are a lot of latinamerican players (mainly chileans, argentinians and mexicans).
NOT the American league, lol, it's one so called pro league, the NWSL, has only 9 teams, with a starting pay of $12.5K(hopefully there's perks like free room & board), which would make them in the welfare/poverty rate in our country. The players who make it to our NT get supplemented by a decent amount(as high as $250K for the year, which also pays their salaries in the NWSL). the big, HUGE deal in American woso is a word(s)..........TITLE IX, for what it's worth it has dominated the WC since it's inception in 1991(I mean/based on the uS winning the most WC/Olympic titles)/ What TITLE IX is that all public colleges have to give equal(or at least fair) amount money for their female sports programs. This system has been so successful that we got currently 39K playing at the college age level. otherwise I can't figure out why Americans are on top of the woso soccer world? Most of our youth are trained by private, mom & pop clubs. We don't even follow FIFA rules/ unless someone can make an youth or senior NT, over 99% of our players will never play FIFA soccer(mainly: it's only 3 sub format) & you could add Japan as well since they got the 2nd best record this decade(I hear high school ball is HUGE in Japan) so will this be the WC where Europe with it's rich, pro clubs, infrastructure, will put the US & Japan(and our wacky ways of doings things) finally in its place? Stay tuned to find out!
That probably goes some way to explaining it. The top Japanese players are probably on a bit better money, though I really do not know how much they get paid. The Japanese have a school system, but once they graduate they either play for a club or a university.
GREAT news for Women's Football : TV ratings for FRA/KOR yesterday just came out, just under 11 Million people watched the game on TV in France. Incredible. That's roughly equivalent to 55.5 Million people watching the game in the US! These numbers are at the World Champions men's squad levels. Beware guys, 20 years from now the French team might be incredible with all the little girls watching this WC lol Saki Kumagai isn't stupid. Week in & week out, she sees the conditions in every club of Division 1. I don't think her comment reflects only her conditions at Lyon.
Three things: 1 - For Title IX, It's not money, it is participation. Women have to be given an equivalent number of participation slots. 2 - This has been the case for both soccer and basketball. 3 - As for soccer, it is the sport middle class American girls play, everywhere, from the time they are 4 or 5. Has been for since I was growing up in the 1980s.