The Thunder Down Under: Women’s Soccer & the 2023 World Cup

[67YAZ]

We're just a few months and one international window out from the Aussie-Kiwi World Cup (July 20-August 20) and it seems right to bring the USWNT and Women's Soccer threads into a new one focused on the big event.

Massive news today - France captain and legend Wendie Renard says she won't play for the national team again while Corine Diacre remains manager. Renard is still one of the very best CBs in the world and the single best set piece target. It's a huge loss for Les Bleus and illustrative of what holds them back - one of the most talented and dysfunctonal teams in the world.

 

[DJnVa]

Two others joined her:

Two other players, Marie-Antoinette Katoto and Kadidiatou Diani, followed suit later on Friday.

 

[Joe D Reid]

The French men's team has been weirdly happy-clappy recently, so it's reassuring to see the women's team carry on the men's tradition of vingt-trois joueurs, vingt-trois voitures.

 

[67YAZ]

The Athletic breaks down Mal Pugh's improvements that have led to her white-hot form.

They did gloss her 2020 injury that wiped out that full season and derailed the first half of 2021. For some young players (e.g., Gio), coming back from their first major, long-term injury can be a massive hurdle. Watching Pugh in early-2021 it was clear that she wasn't trusting her ankle and hesitating where she used to go all out. But she pushed through and come out of it stronger.

 

[67YAZ]

The NWSL coming to FIFA 23 in a couple weeks.

 

[InstaFace]

Canada WNT agrees with Canada Soccer on (a temporary resolution to) their funding disputes.

https://www.espn.com/soccer/canada-canw/story/4890729/canada-soccer-reaches-interim-funding-deal-with-womens-team

...which happened after Canada Soccer's president - a dude, obviously - resigned earlier this week.

 

[67YAZ]

Canada WNT agrees with Canada Soccer on (a temporary resolution to) their funding disputes.

https://www.espn.com/soccer/canada-canw/story/4890729/canada-soccer-reaches-interim-funding-deal-with-womens-team

...which happened after Canada Soccer's president - a dude, obviously - resigned earlier this week.

That is excellent news. I hope their squad can now focus on kicking ass in Oz and gaining ever more leverage to revisit this post-WC.

The bigger issue is that Canada Soccer needs to get out of or entirely redo its broadcast deal. Bad, borderline corrupt leadership has put both men’s and women’s teams way behind.

 

[67YAZ]

Diacre gets the sack-re. Will be interesting to see who France installs to bring the squad to the WC. They have the talent to win the damn thing, and the new manager bump might push them over the top.

Now do your manager, Spain.

 

[InstaFace]

My god, the Total Soccer Show episode on "what's going on with the French women's national team?" last week was so brutal to Diacre. To say she ran the team like a sadistic little fiefdom would not be an exaggeration. It's worth listening to but stuff like telling World Best XI players that they're not being selected, and having 15-second conversations with them about it to just say "you know why, it's because your form hasn't been good", like with Le Sommer and Amandine Henry. Abusive locker room environments. Lazy practices where they don't even work on set pieces and had no focus to the sessions. Sexual harassment or even assault ignored by both Diacre and the all-white-male higher-ups. Taylor and Joe just kept going on and on with the reports of epic mis-management, and what it meant for Wendi Renard and co to try to force change by refusing to play. It made our complaints about Berhalter or Klinsmann or Vlatko look like trivialities.

So, this is great news for les bleus (-ues?). They made the Euro semis basically in spite of Diacre, and everyone agrees they have the talent to be a top-3 team in the world. Their domestic league is kind of a joke beyond the big 2 teams, so any progress for French women's football would be huge for the game at large.

 

[67YAZ]

FIFA backs down on Visit Saudi Arabia sponsorship for the World Cup. But Infantino is still willfully obtuse.

Infantino also pointed out that while there had been a backlash to the mooted Visit Saudi deal, very little was being said about the $1.5bn worth of trade between Australia and Saudi Arabia every year. “This doesn’t seem to be a problem,” he said. “But between a global organisation like Fifa and Visit Saudi this would have been an issue. There is a double standard here, which I really don’t understand.

“There is no issue and no contract. There are discussions and, of course, we want to see how we can involve Saudi sponsors in women’s football generally, how we can involve Saudi sponsors in men football, or we can involve Qatari sponsors in women’s football and men’s football, and all other sponsors from all over the world.”