You may already be aware that the FIFA Women’s World Cup has been full swing in Australia (and New Zealand). That’s Football in case you didn’t know. The world’s most popular team sport by a million miles (or kilometres if you prefer); most popular sport of any kind actually. And it’s not even close…

But this is the women’s game. Not the same one that Pele, Moore, Maradona, Xavi, Zidane and Messi have graced us with. No; this world cup has stars such as…. Hmm… Let me think… Nah! Can’t name a single one. That doesn’t mean that some may be fairly famous to those who follow the women’s game. No disrespect. But seriously hardly anyone outside of the women’s football sphere knows any of them.

Perhaps you can already tell that I am not at all impressed with women’s football. That would be correct. I do not even follow the men’s game any more (for various reasons) so there is no way I was ever going to be jumping onto the fake bandwagon they created for this “world cup”.

My son Daniel loves the game – as I did when I was his age (didn’t we all?) – and for him this is a win-win situation. If any of the two teams in the final win the tournament he will be fairly happy. It will be played tonight between Spain and England.

Too much hype…

The Aussie media were making the semi final game against England seem like the age old Ashes rivalry in the cricket. I can you that it is nothing like that. There is no big rivalry in women’s football. It’s just a marketing/sales pitch. Anyway the “Matildas” (as the Aussie team are nicknamed) lost and went on to lose the 3rd place play-off game against Sweden. None of that stopped the usual politicians trying to make political capital out of it.

It may well all be over by the time most of you read this post. Thankfully. It already is for me. I have already had to concentrate on the really big game this weekend. My son’s team’s final game of the season. Which as it turned out was a very close 1-0 defeat. Great fun to watch. Trust me it was far more entertaining than anything I have seen in this “world cup”. Yes. A game played by boys aged 9 and 10 beats anything I have seen in this world cup tournament.

Meanwhile… Shine on you Aussie Diamonds…

While all the spotlight has been on the women playing football, Australia actually won a world cup in a different sport. A women’s sport actually (cos men do not play it). It happened just 2 weeks ago and they won it for the 12th time in their history. That was the Australian “Diamonds” Netball team who just won the Netball World Cup. It’s a sport they take very seriously in Australia and I can tell you that whenever we take Dani for his football games there are always plenty of netball games taking place near by for all ages.

Well done to you “Diamonds”! It’s a real shame that the shine has been taken off your tremendous victory by the football.

And finally…

One good thing may come out of this “world cup”. And it’s not that more girls will take up the game either. No. It’s that, due to the relative success of the tournament in terms of ticket sales etc., Australia (and New Zealand) may just land the real world cup when they next bid for it. Now that might be of some interest to me…