The logical answer would be: neither this nor that!
What women's football really lacks is popularity, and popularity here is meant to spread among the women themselves.
In fact, multiple statistical studies show that more men watch women's sports in general, especially football, than women.
Specifically, 54% of women's football viewers are men compared to 46% women, and most importantly, more women watch men's football than women.
(1) (2)
Of course, many argue that this is due to the historical differences between women and men in sports in general, as sport remained, until recently, a patriarchal field in which women are prohibited from participating, in addition to what some researchers call social stereotypes that reinforce these differences, such as that boys are pushed into sports. Their childhood to playing with pistols, balls and rackets, while girls spend their childhood with brides, in what is like training for their expected future roles.
(2)
what's wrong
Brazil's Antonia celebrates after winning the 2022 America's Women's Cup. (Reuters)
It is a really good idea, especially since some of these templates are proven wrong by experience. Contrary to what is expected, for example, men show greater emotion in their game compared to women, and in moments of disappointment, heartbreak or joy, men express their feelings with greater intensity and intensity, and some studies even showed their tendency Extremely dramatic - imagine - compared to women, especially in moments of claiming injury or celebrating with colleagues and fans.
(3) (4)
The counter explanation here is that the men’s game is watched by millions and billions, and the more viewers there are, the greater the desire to show off and draw attention as a natural result. The elements that distinguish their game from that of women;
Aggression, and physical intensity.
"What really distinguishes men's football from its women's counterpart is the physical intensity. The differences in it are clearer than the differences in skill or technique."
That was one of the conclusions of the study conducted by the English researcher Paul Bradley of Liverpool John Moores University in 2013, along with 4 of his colleagues.
The study aimed to observe the performance of 54 players and 59 players in the Champions League matches on several criteria.
(5)
Surprisingly, the results were not surprising;
There were no huge differences in the number of dribbles or touches of the ball, but the female players lost possession more often and had relatively lower passing accuracy than the males.
The biggest difference at all was not in the amount of meters covered during one match, but in its quality, as men showed a greater ability to cover distances at a higher speed, and with different sharpness and intensity than their female peers, especially when we talk about the centers of the extremities, such as wings and backs, compared to their counterparts in Women's matches.
(6)
The matter becomes clearer if you try to compare two matches for women and men in terms of body language. The intended physical intensity does not appear only in the speed of running, but in the technique of movement in general. For example, men tend to use their shoulders and arms in defensive positions more intensely, to block opponents or prevent them from progressing. and skip.
Women only use their arms for balance, while they tend to try to get the ball straight with their feet.
Physical struggle and show of force is an essential part of the men's game, while the same is not true in the women's game.
Men also usually adopt more motivated postures than women in pressured and evasive situations, with forward-bent torsos and hunched legs, in contrast to women who often use their relative thinness and slenderness to slip between their opponents, with straight torsos raised and a relatively higher level of vision than men.
Botias.. Alexia Botias
Alexia Botías (Reuters)
Everything is different once you look at it from this angle;
With more scrutiny, you notice that women take relatively shorter steps while jogging, and keep arms straight most of the time, with and without the ball, and this is what makes their movement language much less aggressive than men, and less able to invoke physical struggles, cues, etc.
In the following clip, for example, a group of the most prominent clips of the Spanish Alexia Botías, crowned with the Ballon d'Or last year 2021, who is active in the playmaker center for the Spanish Barcelona, at first glance, is almost certain that many of her movements and evasions are similar to those implemented by Lionel Messi, especially that both He prefers his left foot, but after a few minutes the differences become clear.
(7) (8)
Alexia Botías best women's player in the world for 2021
At 00:20, for example, Alexia performs a dribble after being pressured from behind, and despite her success in that, any eye who used to watch the men's game will realize that her body position was completely wrong, a position that facilitates her fall if the opponent succeeds in extracting the ball;
A torso tilted back, arm outstretched, with the tips of the toes to control the ball, without proper anchoring on the stable foot.
This is a perfect recipe for a fall before the dribble is completed.
The problem here is not Alexia's mental abilities, or her quick-wittedness and ability to act, but on the contrary, the Spanish show an exceptional vision in creating opportunities from very difficult to implement and predict, and even in quirks and one-on-one situations, Alexia shows an ability that many men do not show in The same positions, and there is no clear scientific basis for preferring men over women in complex mental operations, except perhaps those related to space.
(9) (10)
The main problem arises by observing Alexia's field of vision before receiving the ball, and here she realizes that a large part of her superiority over her peers is based on her extraordinary abilities to improvise and good behavior in narrow spaces, not reading these situations before they occur after scanning the field visually.
This is one of the problems of the women's game;
Pre-emptive abilities in defense and attack are almost non-existent, and accordingly, there is no need to expect except in the most difficult situations, even if a player like Alexia is capable of it.
All this gives the game a slow pace, in which the offensive-defensive dialogues start after receiving or moving the ball, with enough time margins to catch the usual mistakes in posture or clear the field, which gives the impression, when watching a unique player like Alexia, that it is easier than it seems It does, which is also what gives you the impression, when you see the rest, that there is a certain amount of foolishness that is easily discernible.
"Of course we can defeat them! I think men are obviously stronger physically, but in terms of technique and skill I think we are as good as men, and that makes us at least try!"
Hope Powell, head coach of the England women's national football team, in an interview with the English Metro in 2014. (11)
Unfortunately, Powell's statements have not been tested on the ground, but it is not a question of the historical sporting superiority of men over women, but rather the suitability of a game such as football to their physical and physiological characteristics.
It is very self-evident if you bear in mind that they were the ones who invented it and made its laws.
In fact, women have managed to outpace men, or at least keep up with them in other games.
In 1996, for example, Shauna Hogan's bike succeeded in setting a new record for the time traveled between Los Angeles and San Francisco, 19 hours and 11 minutes, and no man or woman has been able to break it until now.
(12)
A similar achievement was achieved by Billie Jean King in tennis, and another by Jackie Tonawanda, who has been dubbed the female version of Muhammad Ali, in boxing, but the scientific evidence does not help us to assume that something similar may happen in football in the future.
(12)
Jackie Tonawanda (networking sites)
The first reason, of course, is the different hormonal activity between the sexes, as described in the Journal of Sports Medicine through one of its studies published in 1986, which has not been proven wrong so far, simply because it depends on the secretions of both estrogen and testosterone in men and women.
The latter hormone gives men a bundle of physical fitness advantages at birth;
Like less fat in the lower body, 50% more muscle mass than women, and even a higher percentage of red blood cells that carry oxygen to the muscles.
(13)
Another study published in the US National Library of Medicine in 1993 proved that men's muscle advantage is not only quantitative, but also qualitative. In addition to greater muscle mass, men have a greater percentage of type II muscle tissue (Muscle Fiber II), which is responsible for what is known as explosive power. (Explosive Power).
"Women have approximately 52% and 66% of men's strength in the upper and lower body, respectively. This is mainly due to men's different muscle composition, and their having a different type of tissue, larger in size than women."
(14)
Physiological differences do not stop here, as men, obviously, have larger lungs in absolute and relatively, and this gives them a greater ability to pump oxygen to their muscles, and consequently they have a higher percentage of hemoglobin, which allows this oxygen to be delivered faster to all parts of the body.
This prompted scientists from New York University to conclude that men are more economical and efficient at making muscular effort than women, and are more endurance in the long and short term.
(15th)
All this does not prevent women's football from gathering new viewers every day for completely different reasons;
Reasons related to the environment of the game itself compared to the game of men polluted by politics, capital controls, the desire for showmanship and abhorrent fanaticism.
The women's game is still pure to the degree of innocence, and it is still centered around sports as a raw idea that has not yet caught the impurities of time.
From this angle, it seems that, after all, there is a lot to learn from the game of men from the game of women.
——————————————————————————————-
Sources
1- The breakdown of women's football viewers around the world in 2019 by gender - Statista
2- The scientific reason why men love sports compared to women - Time
3- Why do men soccer players stay 30 seconds longer on the ground after being fouled than women do?
- DW Kick Off!
4- Do women express their feelings more than men?
– Scientific American
5- Why are the best female soccer players banned from playing with men?
Wired
6. Paul Bradley's Study;
Sexual differences in performance during football matches of players participating in the Champions League – Pub Med
7- Alexia Botías best female footballer in the world for 2021 - Youtube
8- Alexia Botias' performance in the She Believes Women's Football Tournament - Youtube
9- Why do men punch harder than women?
Science Daily
10- The battle of the races;
No winner - Psychology Today
11. Hope Powell: "England women can beat Roy Hodgson's men!"
- Metro
12- men against women;
Do women ever become better than men in football?
- Bleacher Report
13- Effects of physiological gender differences on adaptation to sport - Journal of Sports Medicine
14- Sex differences in muscle strength and tissue quality - Pub Med
15- The economy and efficiency of running for female and male athletes - Pub Med