If there’s a catchphrase that sums up the 2023 Women’s World Cup, it’s one you’ve probably been hearing since the opening round of games: The gap is closing.
What does that mean? In short, the difference in quality between the top-ranked teams in the tournament and the lowest-ranked teams has gotten smaller and smaller. As a result, we’ve been treated to a Women’s World Cup that is far more exciting, more competitive and more unpredictable than ever before.
Indeed, the unpredictability hasn’t just extended to results — in terms of winners and losers — but to the way games have played out, which means if you weren’t actually tuning in to the games, you were missing out on all the fun. England, ranked No. 4 in the world, had to go to extra time and a penalty shootout to get past Nigeria (ranked No. 40) in the round of 16. England, a team that reached the final, also only barely edged past No. 53-ranked Haiti in the group stage.
As the curtain comes down on a month-long feast of football, this is in many ways the broader story of this World Cup: the most global and connected tournament that has taken place in women’s football. There may have been 32 nations taking part but in reality their players were representing more than 40 league systems around the world, from Kazakhstan to Iceland, Ecuador to Saudi Arabia.
This cultural cross-pollination, an unprecedented movement of players across national borders, taking their styles and influences with them, has helped to contribute to perhaps the richest and certainly the most unpredictable World Cup in memory.
This is a phenomenon that works in many directions. Open borders mean fewer secrets: where once a group game against Haiti might have been a step into the unknown, England’s analysts had ample footage of their prospective opponents from the 14 of them who ply their trade in France. But it also allows players from emerging nations to hone their skills at a higher level: Colombia’s irresistible adaptability was forged not just at home but in Spain and the United States, where 14 of them have played. The Nigeria squad that ran England so close are employed on four continents.
No matter the joy, the adrenaline, the rush, the guilt over feeling guilty when you’re doing a job you love and that others would give up a limb for, those questions still hit you. Regularly. In many ways, doing the job I do allows me to spend time with my kid in ways that those working nine to five can’t. I’m here, I’m there, from matches to training grounds, but I’m able to help do the school runs, to be present day-to-day, but the tournaments take an emotional and physical toll. It is long days, late nights, thousands of words, mistimed video calls home, unhealthy eating, lots of travel, late-night podcast records, tempered only by the football, the players and the camaraderie between journalists.
It’s a job, but it’s more than a job. Because the still fledgling nature of the sport means that every bit of coverage matters. Coverage helps grow the game. The more coverage there is the more girls see the sport and want to play (you can’t be it if you can’t see it, right?), the greater the investments and the more attitudes towards women in sport are changed. The coverage can shape the developing game too. I care about good coverage of the game. Coverage that pushes it forward and that demands better for and from it. If I didn’t? Well, I wouldn’t walk out of the door while my son – who understands why I have to go – wavers, begs me to stay and grips my arm for as long as possible, forcing me to pull it free. It wouldn’t be worth it. SOURCE: ESPN; Sports Illustrated; The Guardian
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