I get it... in order to best suit the needs and constraints of their many nations football associations, all the continents have variations on the way football clubs and league structures work. But with the latest announcement of another poorly timed (for elite European Clubs) goofball senior wnt tournament on the horizon, moving forward, what will it take before the globes elite female clubs, stop tolerating the constant contempt shown towards their growing importance in female footballs push for professionalism..? Money always drives change in sport, with money concerning one nation, (and a slight hint of vanity) seeming to be the key ingredients behind this latest tournaments announcement too... but if your a top European club who's paying decent amounts of money to create some of the most exciting teams, how long are you going to accept your top players/assets spending time away with a national programs who never pay them, but will happily send them home fatigued or injured..? Sh*t.. I was under the impression various club coaches, players, and even fans, wanted less wnt participation for things like the Algarve Cup; and now the FFF and DFB signs over it's wnt's to play in another mid season senior tournament, nobody important in either nation seemed to actually vocalize ever wanting...
It's a one-off tourney, isn't it? A competition for pre-qualified teams to kill time while others are occupied with Olympic qualfiers. As long as pro leagues in Europe only have 12 clubs and there is a big break between CL matchdays, there are plenty of empty dates to fill. But I agree in theory.. with bigger leagues and more matchdays on the fixture list in the future, going to America in the middle of the season for a friendly tournament is not ideal.
It isnt. They intend to make this a regular and that is why batfink is right. Just an opportunity for North American soccer to make money during off season. They should abolish those winter tourneys in general.
USSF has said that they want to make it annual, but teams to be determined each year (so no, it wouldn't be France, Germany, and England each year...wouldn't even necessarily be Euro teams each year).
If they don't want to play in the tournament, just don't play. That's easy. If the clubs don't want their players to play, don't let them play. That's easy too -- unless FIFA mandates they be allowed to play. The USA has sent teams to Algarve for years. I didn't hear you complaining about that tournament.
Times are changing if they havent already changed. In earlier times NT football was what drove the woman's game forward. Now, CL and national leagues are getting more important every year. Winter tournaments are totally unneccessary in terms of development of the players. They already do play enough in leagues, cups, CL and 3 summer tourneys over 4 years. Algarve was going to get abolished sooner or later anyways. But that all I mentioned of course is true for the top teams. Teams like in the Cyprus cup range probably could still need them. In fact, apart from the US, no team of the top flight needs a winter tourney. And that means Sweden and Norway have fallen out of it.
It's partially happening and now. Rising star of Polish NT, Ewa Pajor just've said no to her recent call up for Poland next 3 friendly matches (2 leg vs. Portugal this month and friendly vs. Iceland in Feb.) due to her club (Wolfsburg) competitive roster, it's hard to blame her. If not clubs, then perhaps players themselves will take care of things
Huh... but I thought I highlighted the growing annoyance people outside of the U.S. felt for Algarve Cup when I said... "Sh*t.. I was under the impression various club coaches, players, and even fans, wanted less wnt participation for things like the Algarve Cup; and now the FFF and DFB signs over it's wnt's to play in another mid season senior tournament, nobody important in either nation seemed to actually vocalize ever wanting" Just speaking about this from a Euro eurocentric perspective, for some time now various club coaches in Germany have been increasingly pissed with the way growing national team obligations have continued to effect the running of the league; and much of this because it's also seemingly not so randomly coincided with Europe's steady improvement of overall attitudes towards professionalism... For years it was only one coach who'd openly share his discontent with the national team (Bernd Schröder of 1.FFC Turbine Potsdam), but now with each passing year, the level of resentment between the league, the national team coaches, and even some players, only grows within the back drop of new club money, improving league conditions, and a ballooning under paid wnt match day schedule. I mean the atmosphere of resentment when your nations football association/federation decides it's a good idea to randomly take your leagues top players away for an mid season excursion to the U.S., just to play against other Euro teams in a exhibition tournament that's clearly only intended to help fatten the pockets of the hosts.. lol, yeah, it's understandable, no? In the U.S. I know the female leagues are basically set up to be beholden to the national teams obligations and demands, so it may be hard to understand why any mid season friendly could cause friction between European clubs, national teams, or players; but when it's the major/historic European football clubs who are continuing to foot the growing bill of various wnt's improvements, there's going to be some major push back eventually... but when?
OK... lol. I know some players have said no to national team call up's in the past, and then seen themselves instantly banished from future national team camps as a vindictive punishment; but I guess little Pajor is way to young and important to Poland's future for anybody within that particular program to try and pull that nonsense with her lol. When Lyon's owner vocalized his frustration towards the way Abily and Bompastor constructed highly curious contractual business with an old U.S. league back in the day, to Dzsenifer Marozsan being told by Frankfurt how she's not going anywhere while under contract, I can see all kinds of progress in the confidence Euro clubs operate with right now. But in a world where money talks, I think your probably 99% right in suggesting that it's only going to be player power that makes real lasting change to the Euro scenes club vs country concerns.
I don't agree that NT friendly tournaments are useless. I dare to say that, despite its growth, club women's football is still far from the relevance NT women's football still maintains. Even by just looking at these boards you can get an idea of the amount of women's NT-related discussions vs women's clubs-related discussions. But attendances also suggest that most of the times (and in most places, with notable exceptions, as probably Germany) National Teams tend to attract more fans and especially more interest than club games. Also consider that women's football doesn't even have a World Cup for clubs yet and inter-federations club-play is close to non-existent. If people could see German or French club-teams battle vs US club-teams on a regular basis, then maybe NT clashes could become marginal, but this is not the case, so I find this kind of matches very interesting in general and for sure much more interesting than Wolfsburg or OL bashing on 12th team of their respective national leagues or on some random east-European side in round of 32 of Champions' League. The money, you say? Yes, the money is elsewhere, but: 1) I don't think women's football moves yet enough money for club play to overshadow NTs; 2) no additional growth of money can circulate without enough interest around women's football and, in my opinion, what still drives most of the fans to women's football is National Team play. Giving you Japan's example would be too much easy as it's a case study of a national league that was turned on its head by the injection of fans following WWC 2011's victory. But, last time I heard, the various leagues that rose and fell in USA in the last decade always seemed to just thrive on USWNT and every now and then they were desperately needing a good result from US National Team at WWC or at Olympics to avoid folding. Last observation: it's quite odd that a tournament like Algarve is deemed "useless" from an US perspective. Without the severe test of Algarve 2014 (a tournament that included most of the top ten NTs in the world) probably Sermanni would have remained at his place. In the light of recent Coach of the Year Award given to Jill Ellis, it seems to me that the result at Algarve had quite some relevant influence on USWNT's history...
Given the relatively recent timeline of male football clubs deciding to genuinely pursue interest in shaping the future of professional female football, of course it's going to find itself lagging behind the much wider recognition of a significantly older international scene. However, talking about lasting growth within specific regions, it's pretty damn clear for anybody looking over at what's taking place for UEFA's various competitions, that a general rising tide has lifted just enough ships, players from a nation like Germany are now genuinely feeling the negatives of unforeseen repercussions an increased amount of high intensity match days can bring; these being increased cases of fatigue, and minor/major injury. Plus we still see the elite teams of men's football hand out punishing beat-downs to low ranked UCL teams too, so I don't see why it wouldn't be the same or worse in the women's game, where a side of full time pro international stars can find themselves in the early rounds against a semi pro team from say... a not so mighty Romania; oh, and this still ignoring how 2015/16 UCL play hasn't actually seen these kinds of lopsided beat-downs happen either... But does anybody have the numbers for what the FFF or the DFB paid it's female players last year..? Well going on the past trends of it being near enough nothing, I'm willing to bet it's not even close to the kinds of figures brought up and discussed for top players at the elite clubs now, so... I agree that the role of the wnt for many nations creates the most general interest for women's football, and significant growth still needs to take place before a club scene can stand tall as the driving force in the women's game too. But again, if I'm looking at this club vs country topic using examples taken from particular regions, I'm not seeing how you can correlate the boom and bust cycle of any U.S. league, to any overnight growth/interest in Japan, or a long tedious process taking place in Germany. Like my very first point in this thread, every continent has a different way of running football to suit their own needs; so when you appreciate how much major clubs within a French, or German league, are currently footing the bill for respective national teams to improve, I think people are missing how significantly this has probably already changed the present/future dynamic concerning the role of the international friendly tournaments for other nations who will follow.
Well, I respect the point of view of Batfink and of others who think that major clubs' interests should overcome those of National Teams, but I maintain my opinion that big international friendly tournaments as Algarve Cup, at the moment, remain quite important tests to compare the teams outside the isolation of their confederations and they significantly contribute to shape the development of national programs. Moreover, I guess to most of the audience they're still bread-and-butter of the international scene and of what keeps most of us hooked to women's football. Thus, as financially irrelevant as they are, they should anyway deserve respect from clubs and from their federations (and from players also, if they somehow get what's still currently moving the wheels of interest for women's football). I'll add just a personal observation: I am not so sure women's football should squarely carbon-copy the model of development of men's football. You'll say that economic laws are the same for men and for women alike, but I beg to differ: there is at least a sub-section of women's football's followers (I met them or talked with them, so it's not just my personal lunacy) who are attracted by how different the general approach of women's football still is compared to men's scene. Some of us like to gaze into a world when not everything is about business, but passion and sportsmanship still play a more meaningful role than in men's football. There are quite unique features to women's approach to football that is not worth throwing out of the window, because I guess they are quite attractive to at least a part of the fans (the kind of reasons that about a week ago made me follow the final of Japanese High-School Championship with quite the same satisfaction I would have got from a professional match). There is often a different atmosphere around women's football, on the standings of stadiums as much as in on-line discussions, and it would be a shame if women's football would just pursue the goal of being "the same as men's football". Do I mean that women's football should remain mostly amateur and not-professional and that women shouldn't aim at having careers that are financially more rewarding? Not at all: I just say that it's not a given that the path to develop women's football should follow step-by-step the model of men's football. For instance, I don't think predominance of clubs would be a good for women's football, for no other reason that women's football cater to a segment of audience that it's not perfectly overlapping with average men's football audience, and in my opinion women's football's audience still care (a lot) for National Teams and, probably, will keep caring for them more than men's football does. So, to recap my point, I guess the day women's clubs will become "win-at-all-costs business-machines" as in men's football, a lot of what makes women's football so special would get lost: so, long live to National Teams' international friendly tournaments!
well thoughtfully presentation on what makes a woso fan what's a shame or on the negative side/ is that except the WC, fans of woso don't seem to enjoy watching anything outside their own specialized countries. For instance, NWSL fans don't care to watch pro club games or friendlies out of Europe, and it's vice versa, Euro fans wouldn't give a crap on watching NWSL games(every single league game was streamlined). Now if the Chelsea men's team came to visit the US, it would sell out in minutes a 60K stadium, where as if the Chelsea women's team would probably sell the norm of an average NWSL game(3-4K). So in this way we as woso fans, refusing to watch one's another's interests are still showing that men's game is still superior. And unfortunately the one's that are really getting hurt are the female players, who of course aren't going to make a decent salary(in the pro's) do to the low interest by even their own woso fans
Well dunno 'bout others but for me it's not exactly true. I'm from Europe, and am following Nadeshiko Japan. You asked me once why I do it. I think blissett covered some of the points of why, nicely. I would also add that pure joy of playing football is shinig brighter at women's game than it's at man's. As NWSL goes I did watch most of Settle Reign last season matches (and was glad for webstreams) as I watched and enjoyed L.A Sol back in the day. So I give a crap I guess In the topic of Club vs. Country, me take is although we fans enjoy watching NT's battle in various friendly tournaments, ultimately as Batfink said clubs are becoming main force behind female footballs push for professionalism so our needs of where to watch them are really secondary to their life career choices and implications that choices bestow on football scene developement.
I agree with you, Blissett. One important point, I believe, is that international women's soccer, for all practical purposes, preceded club women's soccer. This gives a high value to international games for women. But, I think we all should be concerned about the economics of professional club women's soccer. I thought Batfink's point was that if international games are undercutting the economic viability of professional women's clubs, that's a serious issue to take into consideration. I'm not sure what the answer is given the high value, for women, of international games and the simultaneous and sometimes conflicting high value, for women, of professional club development. I'm particularly not sure because I don't know how much value FIFA -- with its friendly "windows" and so on -- assigns to women's soccer at all and how much it is willing to recognize differences between women's soccer's international/club history and men's and how that might require different rules for the women. It is looking to me like, in the US, the USSF and NWSL are trying to figure out how to work together to maximize both the National Team's success and the NWSL's success. They're having to learn as they go, but I'm pretty optimistic about how their relationship is evolving. On the issue of National Team scheduling, however, it gets more complicated. Internationally, different countries' club systems are on different schedules. That's an example of a complicating factor that can cause problems for the clubs. FIFA, if it had the interest, could help work those problems out in a way that is particularly suited to women's soccer. But, I'm doubtful about whether FIFA has the interest. In fact, I've wondered whether the women's game might be better off breaking away from FIFA, or at least operating under a completely separate and independent umbrella within FIFA. Whether that could provide better help for the international v club issues, however, I don't know.
nice discussion. my take? first of all, like cp, i have no solutions. but i'd like to note that we seem to agree on some facts, and probably should shake out whether we agree on a few others. 1. international woso developed before club woso. 2. people therefore flock to see and hence economically support int'l woso. 3. people, by and large, do not flock to see, and therefore do not economically support, club woso, requiring it to be heavily subsidized. 4. players can say no to these inconvenient int'l call ups, but at what price to their int'l careers. [big tournament (wc) bonuses might be huge down the line]. 5. clubs can refuse to release players to these inconvenient int'l call ups, but at what price? 6. nt coaches can refuse to agree to these inconvenient tournaments if the $$ and challenge for the team they get doesn't outweigh the inconvenience and danger to the players. are any of these in question? other relevant facts to be added? wouldn't a slew of strong clubs and nts in concacaf and conmebol and the resulting cl and copa america solve this problem?
Like we all see with the men's game, major international football tournaments will always remain the one part of the sport that can continue to unify disparate national tv audiences, merging them into short lived but huge support bases, for a unique element of the game that would (depending on the nation) otherwise generate marginal interest at best. Club football globally, even with all it's new billions and millions of TV/media revenue, will never remove this key dynamic from the games world wide popularity; but the idea men's football would have actually benefited from never seeking to embrace the club's new structures for ever improving professionalism, sounds rather goofy to me.., and yet it's exactly what it seems people expect to happen on the women's scene, no..? I hear what Blissett states highlighting the idea of women's football having it's own traditions, within a different type of atmosphere surrounding it too, but much of it sounds like an irrational fear of amateurism vs professionalism, bringing up the very same themes that have always sparked debate concerning the growth of all burgeoning sports back in the day. So it's not about women's football seeking to be the ugly doppelganger of men's football; but sat within a very wealthy and highly developed region for the men's side of the sport, it's pretty clear European women's football would be nothing short of insane, if it didn't fully embrace the trend of male football within UEFA, to increasingly open it's doors to help a new wave of female domestic prospects, and the globes top female names, in being truly professional.
Plus watching the women's side of the sport free it's self from the annoying cyclical constraints of boom and bust popularity, constantly being based on the fortunes of one or two national teams, will only come through the natural, and almost inevitable rise of a healthy club game; this being a club game that's already significantly decreased players past dependence on needing constant proximity to the wnt, in order to simply improve in areas of technique, fitness, tactics, and financial income. And why should French, German, or even English players care about some random wnt tournament happening in America, when the clear angle of said tournament is to be a corporate sponsorship money making exercise for the hosts, without any of the players on the other teams likely to even see any significant money for the mid season excursion... Lol, it's in this landscape the idea of a more prominent club scene gets painted as being unsentimental and corporate, while international football get's romanticized for being all about passion with a healthy dose of sportsmanship.
I don't think anyone disagrees with your basic point, that I've seen, but when you use "the clear angle," you lose credibility. You don't like it, so you conclude the intent of the tournament must be evil. Perhaps the purpose is to have a tournament of very top teams in preparation for the Olympics? That you don't even consider that as a possible legitimate reason for the tournament suggests a little too little thought ... and perhaps a dislike for the idea of a significant annual tournament being played on US soil? But, your other points I agree with.
The US only hold this tourney or at least want to make it a regular cause Concacaf does not provide equal opposition in qualifiers. Euro teams dont need Algarve as prep for Olympics or WCs. They have ever more demanding qualifiers and far more important Euros. I mentioned last year that in the long run this will eventually turn out a locational handicap and the USSF has already realized. In my view, there is no reason for Euro teams to provide the US with non-friendly competition opportunity.
why indeed? what hold does the greedy ussf have on germany, england, and france that forced them to sign on the dotted line for this tournament? europe has had this kind of top team tournament every year for many years. why can't it be held in the u.s.? having said that, it will be well nigh impossible to do this every year in the u.s. as i said, what's needed is a slew of strong clubs and nts in concacaf and conmebol.
As somebody who genuinely sees various faults in every national football association when it come to women's football, I'm not trying to sh*t on how any particular confederation does things here; all I'm asking is for rational answers for why European wnt's would think it smart to risk further player injury/fatigue for players already well and truly deep into their respective seasons...? So my use of "the clear angle" was only meant to highlight how curious decision making at the top of the wnt scene appears, when the area of the game making the most significant impact towards the growth of women's football in the European region, is now being actively ignored for the benefit of what surely has to be the clear money making routine of the USSF, no? Of course it's not evil (making money), but expecting 3 European wnt's to travel to America, to play against each other at a piont in the season French and German players are coming to the important final push of the season, all seems rather mischievous on the part of the the international teams various leaders... Forgetting the fact England/GB can't play in the Olympics, like White/Blue_since1860 states, with all the Euro's and WC qualification games they already have available, plus the close proximity to many competitive rivals, the top European wnt's don't really need to travel to another continent in order to obtain credible tournament warm up's anymore. Never seeing a German wnt in places like Japan/Asia for one off friendlies or tournaments, they're surely only signing contracts to regularly play in America due to the DFB seeing still unknown to the public financially beneficial factors....
I can't fathom this one either. See with the time delay issues, and likely major expense it would take to purchase these matches for a European market, the European TV stations would be doing the FA/DFB/FFF massive favors if they chose to showcase any of these games in a way that saw the European teams receiving any truly significant financial returns. The corporate sponsorship running this new event have obviously given the three Euro nations involved a level of financial concessions, more than high enough for them to commit to something without ever talking to the clubs or players beforehand; but even if I understand the way the USSF needs to act in order to generate money to cover the costs/burden of backing it's expensive wnt program, I really question the motives of people overseeing the almost indentured existence of women within Germany/French programs right now. FFF: Hey Lyon and PSG, we'll just be taking your French and German internationals to America for a brief period in March. But hey, don't worry, we've also made a deal to pick up a little money for ourselves, take in the sights, and send the players back home injured and fatigued as great preparation for an Olympic tournament we know ourselves, or any other Euro nation will never win... Timing, players fitness, and finances. These would be the main three reasons for why the U.S. playing three Euro nations on U.S. soil seems rather disruptive to anybody interested in the European club scene. The Nadeshiko fans will tell you Japan really needs to organize more friendlies, and I feel there's still many nations out there just like Japan right now too, who don't get exposed to enough new challenges within their region, but lack the financial clout/fan interest to host or take part in expensive invitationals. So with Europe already dealing with a well and truly bloated wnt match calendar constantly competing with elite clubs growing league/cup demands, even if club football is definitely the future of the sports global improvement, I think a regular four team tournament held in the states, featuring USA - Brazil - Japan - using various European nations on rotation, would have made most sense moving forward.