why US women are good in soccer

It's because, to a large degree, women are empowered in the United States. Women's athletics (as you have shown) go back a long time. While womens soccer didn't really exist till the 60s (high school and colleges starting up teams), here in the US, women are encouraged to be athletes. Not just some, but all. Especially over the past two decades female independence and athleticism has grown tremendously. The reason we won the Womens World Cup and continue to more or less dominate the female soccer world is because of the Mia Hamm generation. The women aroud her age stepped into a world more willing to accept their independence and desire to play a sport than quite possibly any other time in history.

 

It's not just culturally....

True, women are more empowered in the US, but a lot of the reason why US women dominate is that there's more of them playing the game. They can start as early as age 5 or 6 and then there's an incredible number of club teams which take them up to and through high school. There are literally hundreds of college programs, many of which offer scholarships. It's a complete established system and IMO, you haven't seen the full picture yet. The millions of young girls who put up Mia Hamm posters in their rooms after the last Women's World Cup are mostly still growing up.

 

Re: why US women good in soccer

I'm not sure where this list came from, but take it with a grain of salt.

Canadian women have been playing soccer since at least 1895.

English women have been playing soccer since the 1920's.

These dates are irrelevant anyway. It's not as if there have been unbroken lines of development and constant improvement since the "beginning" of women's soccer in each country.

Certainly, if women were playing soccer in 1874 in the USA, that fact has no bearing on the strength of the present USA women's team. So many other factors have occurred in the meantime that are of far more importance to the success of the modern team.

 

Re: why US women good in soccer

May I suggest to the esteemed moderators here that this tripe go the way of lsv's previous troll.

So China, Australia, Ghana, Brasil, etc. never played women's soccer?

source, please

So what NT was Pia Sundhage playing for in 1975?

 

Regarding the Dick, Kerr ladies:

 

why US women good in soccer

It's largely the college and high school systems in this country that put a much larger emphasis on sports than in other parts of the world. This is certainly true for girls. And girls have been grab onto that idea with the encouragement of family and school. It starts earlier too with the encouragement.

"i think because US women started playing soccer in 1874 while European started in 1978. below are the complete list of when women(in the world) started playing this game "

As usual, the thread starter shows some ignorance. The first international match for England was just after the first World War. In 1920, the two English club teams played in a friendly at Goodison Park in front of a crowd of 65,000. In fact, the biggest team of the era, Dick, Kerr Ladies played matches all over England and was the bulk of the squad that played a France XL in several matches in England and then several months later in France in 1920. In 1922, Dick, Kerr Ladies went to the United States to play a few college teams of men. The average attendance for a men's game in the early 20s was around 4,000. The Dick, Kerr Ladies matches attracted crowds of between 8,000 and 10,000. This was all in a quick moving couple of years towards the end and after WWI. It's true that the FA banned the women from using most of the stadiums in 1922?(Lifted in 1971, I think) but women continued to play. All throughout 50s and 60s they continued to play. The first professionial women's league in the world was in Italy throughout the 60s and 70s and the money was for living expenses. Also all of those European countries or most of them played in their first internationals in the late 60s and early 70s in mini-tournaments which were not sanctioned by FIFA. And in continental tournaments like the Nordic Championships. In 1971, 110,000 people watched Denmark play Mexico in the Azteca Stadium. The third place game(played the previous day in Guadalajara) was played before 50,000 people. West Germany played the Netherlands in 1956 before a crowd of 18,000.The history of women's soccer is long and largely unknown the majority of soccer fans around the world. Nigeria has been playing internationals since at least 1991. And Japan has been playing since at least 1977.

 

In case, anybody see this and wonders what kind of idiot am I for repeating information, I say that I took my time and those other responses showed up in the meantime and I didn't know they were there. Don't know why I said 65,000 for Goodison. Maybe that's the capacity. In fact, "Women on the Ball" says 53,000 with 10,000-14.000 locked outside. that's where I came up with it.

 

Re: Re: why US women good in soccer

Not a very good one. Care to name it so that I can avoid it?

 

For a bit more scholarly approach to femfootie:
Women’s involvement with soccer

 

DM is a master of understatement.

 

When you take into account the number of women in this country who play soccer, success has to be expected. The question is, how is it that a country as small as Norway is just about as good as the US?

 

I haven't watched Norway in quite some time, but it always frustrated me that they were so effective against the U.S. playing that one dimensional long ball tactic. The U.S ladies would combine individual skills with a strong passing game and lose to a lob over the top. Is this still Norway's game, and if so, are we still as vulnerable to this tactic?

 

The question is, how is it that a country as small as Norway is just about as good as the US?

Size and good coaching help. One thing might be early encouragement. In Norway as in some other countries, they talk of women's and men's soccer, they just say soccer.

 

Women in any sport

One positive point to USA: all the support they have for women in sports, they have a huge support to sport in college and women have all the encourage to participate in whatever.
Someothers countries doesn´t, and women in such a sport as football, baseball, basquetball doesn´t have any support. Women has to be very female,cute and pretty (And it´s true those girls models hate football)and for that reason men from that places hate to see them playing a male´s tough sport. Also men think women doesn´t understand these sports.That´s a reality for many cultures, it´s a culture fact, in Argentina, Colombia, some Islam countries, football and women are worlds apart because the football ball is to boys and a doll for girls.
Still the world needs to be more equal because, even tough all the growing women football around the world, some people think that way.

 

<puts on Martha Burke facemask>

Stupid chovanist! It is nothing to do with what you are talking about! The reason women won the 1999 Women's World Cup and are succesful is simply because of Title IX. Without Title IX, no woman could do anything except wash dishes and maybe purchase groceries at a few select non-discrimanating stores! Without Title IX, women could not own land or even think about playing any sport that didn't involve skimpy outfits! Title IX is why Mia Hamm is good!

<end sarcastic Martha Burke Rant>

(Incase anyone doesn't get the references, around 1999 tons of Title IX proponents were claiming that the US Women's Team was the product of Title IX.)

The empowerment of women actually has little to do with it. Who lost to us in PKs? China, a communist state. Basically any person who says that the reason we have such great women players is because they have rights and it shows that democratic republics work so well, are also saying that the next best thing is communism.

The reason why is because the US puts out some of the best athletes. These girls put in the extra hours on the field and took the talents given them and used them.

 

It's an emphasis on women. The Scandinavian countries show it in the percentage of women in their parliaments which reflect women-friendly lawas. China shows it in the percentage of women who are working outside of the home and the percentage of those who get good maternity leave and good child care. China certainly puts the US to shame in regards to those two stats notwithstanding their many other problems. We show it by sports, the number of prominent businesswomen there are in this country and by other avenues of achievement. It's encouragement as well. Also Title IX has a little bit to do with it. Those countries that don't emphasize women in sports or in the public discourse are probably not going to have big women's soccer programs. Big exception being Brazil but that has more to do with the soccer obsession of so many Brazillians. And as our Brazillian players tell us, it hasn't been easy. In parts of Africa, the FAs have not put much emphasis on the women's game and it's up to individual businesswomen and companies to help with the organization and sponsorship.

 

Phew. Yuck.

Well, it's rotten. Don't spread it.

 

Earliest indication is that organizaed soccer was played in the US was in the 50s on the East coast. During the 50s and 60s colleges in Vermont and Canada started to play intercollegiate matches. Brown started the first program in 1977.

 

If Nigerian women didn't start playing soccer until 1998, how did they manage to qualify for the 1995 World Cup?

Women's soccer was very popular in Britain in the early part of the 20th century before the chauvinists at the FA quashed it. FWIW, the US did not field a national team until 1985.

 

or even the 1991 women's world cup...they were the african representatives for the first ever women's world cup too

elaine

 

Could someone please explain for the benefit of the non-Yanks among us what is Title IX?

Thanx.

 

i'm not an american, but title IX was the law passed in 1972 that stated that women's sports should have equal funding and "opportunity" as any male sports.

i'm sure somebody can elaborate on that...lol

elaine