[Football] 22 WSL games to be shown live on BBC TV from next season

[hart's shirt]

Comparisons between men's and women's football are unhelpful and reducing the size of the goals and pitches could be beneficial, says England midfielder Fara Williams.

Chelsea Women manager Emma Hayes has previously suggested that smaller goals and smaller pitches would benefit the women's game and 37-year-old Reading midfielder Williams agreed.

She said: "I'm not saying we should massively change the size of goals and the pitch, but if it makes the game look faster or more skilful then I'm for that.

"If they were reduced by a small amount I don't see it as a negative - it would make the game look faster. I'm not talking about nine-a-side pitches and it doesn't have to be massively smaller.

"How many times have we been to a game and said 'how big is the pitch today?'

"You look at Liverpool for example, the men, and [Trent] Alexander-Arnold and [Andy] Robertson are pinging it from right to left - if you can name full-backs in our game that are able to do that, it doesn't happen that much."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/56408522

 

[schmunk]

It's perhaps a fortunate coincidence that the original goalsizes and the increase in human size has resulted in what we have today.

I fear you're dabbling in a little spot of aftertiming there...

 

[Gwylan]

Good point.

Average male height in the UK back when the goal size was determined: 5ft 5in

Could explain some of the scorelines back in the day. Just looked back to Brighton United's early matches - 101 goals in the first 20 games

 

[Dave the OAP]

Bunch of dorises toe punting the ball backwards and forwards....it’s a no from me.

Give me watching billionaires in hideously expensively polluting cars going round and round a track for two hours any day!

 

[Swansman]

Just 5 days ago on the BBC Sport website: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/56408522


Comparisons between men's and women's football are unhelpful and reducing the size of the goals and pitches could be beneficial, says England midfielder Fara Williams.

Williams, England's most capped player with 172 appearances, and fellow Lioness Lucy Bronze, who won best women's player at Fifa's 2020 awards in December, feature on the first episode of the new series of The Players podcast.

The pair describe their journeys to the top, injury setbacks, recovering from health problems, their best moments in football and how it could be improved.

So how do they feel the women's game is perceived and what changes could be made?

Chelsea Women manager Emma Hayes has previously suggested that smaller goals and smaller pitches would benefit the women's game and 37-year-old Reading midfielder Williams agreed.

She said: "I'm not saying we should massively change the size of goals and the pitch, but if it makes the game look faster or more skilful then I'm for that.

"If they were reduced by a small amount I don't see it as a negative - it would make the game look faster. I'm not talking about nine-a-side pitches and it doesn't have to be massively smaller.

"How many times have we been to a game and said 'how big is the pitch today?'

"You look at Liverpool for example, the men, and [Trent] Alexander-Arnold and [Andy] Robertson are pinging it from right to left - if you can name full-backs in our game that are able to do that, it doesn't happen that much."

Ok and here is someone saying the goals are fine, so it seems like there's multiple (!) opinions out there.

https://www.givemesport.com/1483066...-and-pitches-should-be-made-smaller-for-women

One person who fiercely disagrees with Hayes is the former United States goalkeeper Hope Solo, who is currently working as a pundit for BBC Sport in France.

“I had no problem covering my goal-and neither do many of the goalkeepers playing in the World Cup right now!” the 37-year-old, who represented her country 202 times, said on Twitter.

“If there was truly a problem with women tending the net, then we could talk about it. What is sexist is assuming that women need concessions. If you believe in the adaptability of humans then we should be striving to develop great GKs by giving women better coaching and training.

“GK coaching has historically been severely underfunded. I don’t care about the average height of women, we shouldn’t be looking for average players, we should look for spectacular athletes. It should take one of a kind players to make it to the top level. Not everybody can do it.

“Historically the quality of goalkeeping in the women’s game hasn’t been great. And when you look at the complete picture this isn’t just because of height, but because of the physique, lack of technique, inconsistent coaching and simply put by not having the best athletes in goal.

“What creates this problem with goalkeeping and the size of the goal is coaches who don’t demand more excellence, don’t provide year round quality training, and coaches who don’t select the proper athlete/goalkeeper to represent their teams.

“My former teammates fight to play on big fields, and I think they’ve shown that they have every right to play on the size of field they want. If you think the field is too big and you don’t want to listen to players you might as well make us play futsal!

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“I can’t apologize for being emotional when I read comments like these because I spent my whole career pouring my blood, sweat and tears into perfecting my craft. To put a handicap on the women’s game cheapens the accomplishments of everyone who has worked so hard for years.”

Strong stuff there from Solo. It seems many people feel the same way.

 

[Swansman]

It's perhaps a fortunate coincidence that the original goalsizes and the increase in human size has resulted in what we have today.

However I don't think any of us think that the game would improve by making goals bigger - it would only remove some of the skill required to score goals, and result in the keepers having too much of a disadvantage. Perhaps that disadvantage did exist a century ago - but they knew no better. But this is at a time before many rules that we have today were in place, and it would be unthinkable not to have them.

We do know better now. I've watched many games of women's football and the goals ARE oversized for them. Unskilled pot shots are scored too often, purely due to lack of reach by the keeper. It takes away both the skill and the entertainment from the sport.

If you are under 6' you are unlikely to make it as a professional goalkeeper. Even 6' is considered too short, sorry Maty. There might be a time where the women's game finds freakishly tall women akin to women's basketball is the US to have as goalkeepers... but in reality that is not fair or good for football.

Interesting opinions. Disagree with all of them.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

Look on the BBC Sport website, and as previously mentioned how many WSL related messages do you get from the club?

Regarding the BBC Sport website there’s all manner of sport on there which I have zero interest in like rugby, boxing, cricket and golf....I just ignore it. In fact I’d go as far to say the vast majority of the website as a whole contains stuff I am not interested in and also ignore ir. On the BBC website I find it’s easy to avoid stuff. That said, I used to look at local publications like the Argus and I did feel “bombarded” with all sorts of pop-ups and ads and shit so I sympathise here; I don’t bother now unless it’s something I really want to read which is unlikely to be fair.

Regarding WSL emails....I guess I opted out as I don’t think I get any?

 

[boik]

There seem to be quite a few on here that see it as a badge if honour that they aren't going to watch or enjoy women's sport. It seems the asteroid didn't wipe out all of the dinosaurs after all.

 

[rippleman]

Well that would be a bizarre reaction, as it is a necessary change needed to improve women's football. I'm sure most women who play the game would not react like that.

Competitive youth football uses smaller goals for a very good reason. The same reason why it would be a terrible idea to make men's goals bigger. And the same reason why it would be a good idea to make women's goals smaller.

It needs to be a size relative to the size of the players, in order for it to not be too easy for the outfield players, or too difficult for the goalkeepers, or vice versa.

Why didn't we get to have a smaller goal when we had "midget" Maty Ryan between the sticks? Only seems fair based on the argument that womens' matches should have smaller goals as the keepers are smaller.