In my opinion, the USA team was only 'decent' because of the serious lack of quality opposition they faced because the USA team have been professional for many many years whereas some of the other countries have gone professional within the last 2-3 years but the majority are still part time armatures/semi pro.
Them's fightin' words, my friend!
The argument that the overall women's game has massively improved is completely valid, as is the point that USA have been a dominant team partially because they were among the first to really professionalize the national team and take advantage of top-quality facilities and training programs. They've never had better opposition than now.
But I disagree on two points. First, USA have not been 'decent' over the last several decades - they have been
dominant. Big difference. I needn't cite the thousands of published journalistic and pundit discussions of how good the USA team has been, measured objectively by people who know what they are talking about. These aren't several generations of scrubs put in fancy uniforms and through a training montage. These are genuinely world-class players under elite-level coaches. American players are regularly playing key roles in European professional teams as well.
Second, USA are not going to fade from the top in the women's game. A far, far greater proportion of The US's top female athletes find their way into football compared with men who are drawn towards the incredibly lucrative and traditionally dominant worlds of other sports. The women's team will, for the foreseeable future, continue to paint a more accurate picture of the USA's potential place in world football for both sexes
if the elite segment of the overall talent pool was being channeled into football rather than NFL, baseball, basketball, and so on.
USA probably won't be dominating the game as they once did now that other top football countries are, at long last, taking the women's game seriously. But those who assume that USA is now going to be an also-ran in football are seriously underestimating the talent pool and potential. In the men's game other sports will always hold us back from where we could be if we took the sport as seriously as Germany or Brazil, but not so in women's football.
Manchester City have posted a Premier League record revenue of £712.8m for the 2022-23 financial year
Man City bragging about profits has some sort of comical yet sad irony to it.
Record
revenue, maybe, but we all know they've been losing money on this project all along. The only purpose of revenue to Man City is as a little fig leaf to (inadequately) cover their financial doping activities.
This is what makes state clubs (and oligarch-run) clubs different and worse than everyone else - in a footballing world awash with money, they are not in it for profit. The clubs trying to make money, as greedy as they are, have some rational limiting factor to their behavior. State clubs have none.
metro.co.uk
www.sportspromedia.com
