... started yesterday. I watched 2 games and was entertained.
First I saw England win and was impressed by the team. The lines moving up and back as one, always players available to take a pass. That resulted in very few sideways/backwards passes. Some lovely 1 and 2 touch passes in tidy triangles. No lambasting of the ref (who did well). No simulation of fouls. No feigning injury.
Men's professional sides should take note.
The I saw the Dutch ladies beat Zambia 10-3. Very enjoyable. Had all the same properties as the England game including a decent ref. Both keepers could lose their place in their next group game. The Zambian keeper being at fault for 3 or 4 of the Dutch goals and the Dutch keeper for 2 of the Zambian goals. Banda helped herself to a hat trick for Zambia, Miedema scoring 4 for the Dutch.
Basically I saw all the things that I miss from the men's game of old and none of the things I dislike about today's game.
It brought to mind the video on Youtube where a female player is tackled on the sideline, falls and you see that her knee is doslocated. She immediately hammers it back into place with her fist, gets up and gets back into the game. Those with a medical background might say she should not have gone back on as there might be muscle/ligament/tendon damage and they'd be right BUT it shows the mindset of the women compared to that of the prima donnas. The "men" in the men's game need to man up.
Agreed its got its merits, I actually watched the second half twice, there were so many times when a player got the ball and I was ready to moan about a non-productive back pass but the player instead chose to turn and press on - entertaining stuff
The big technical shortcoming is the woeful standard of goalkeepers. There must be something not yet understand that makes them so bad. it wasn't just the game you saw
I'll spin that a different way, and suggest that finding an athlete from whatever discipline with the attributes to be a goalkeeper, lets say from netball or gymnastics, and training them to be a goalkeeper, might be a good approach. I spent ten years watching my girls at pretty good school/county standard at netball games, and the ball handling HAD to be top notch to succeed, albeit the difference is in netball the players request the ball in a certain place to catch and that doesnt happen in footy