The Woolster

Nice read https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/06/07/sports/soccer/world-cup-survey.html?smid=tw-share

1. Less time and space would probably mean less accurate passing I'd have thought. 2. Goals per game in the women's world cup were 2 decimal points higher per game than the mens. Same difference between the WSL and Premier League. Such bad keepers, but not significantly more goals, so I think its fine. I'd dare say that the average goal keeper when the size of goals was decided back in the day was significantly smaller than now, perhaps in line with the average women keeper now even. Perhaps we should actually make men's goals bigger! 3. Are we talking at grass roots kids level? Think you can make that arguement for boys and girls football, in England anyway.

Oh, and as it stands in England, girls can only play with/against boys until U18 level. The women aren't allowed to test themselves against the men. There was a Canadian goalkeeper a year or 2 ago who tried to join a men's team, but the league wouldn't allow it even though the team thought her good enough to warrant a place in the squad

Serena Williams would probably lose to most of the men in top 300. She is undoubtedly a better tennis player then the majority of them, in my opinion, but they are able to hit the ball harder and run around faster, so would beat her. I would say that quality is very subjective.

My guess is that the boys on the U9 team have probably played more football than most of the girls in the U13 team despite being quite a lot younger. Boys on average are much more likely to have been introduced to football at a younger age and to have spent more of their time playing it. Also not all girls want to play with boys, and those ones are less likely to be able to find a team to play with as there are just less girls playing. I coach my daughter's team at what will be U10 next season, and she is the only girl in the team. Her main issue is that she is an August baby, so will very often be the youngest in a given match, and she is small for her relative age as well, and add to that she does not have the fearlessness of some of the boys, so she struggles with the physicality of it at times. But technically, she is as good as a lot of the boys she plays with. We come up against some teams which also have girls, and they are bigger, and a fearless with it, and they are the equal of a lot of boys. We are in one of the lower divisions, but still. If you put together a team of all the girls playing in the league, I think they would probably be pretty good. My son is at a Chelsea Development Centre, so perhaps a relatively high standard, playing with U7s and U6s. By far and away the best player in the group is a girl, she is outstanding. Pre-puberty, the girls can be the equal of the boys, but after puberty, the girls will struggle against guys physically, and the physicality can outweigh the quality.

It is thought that The US Womens team have generated more money for the US Soccer Federation of the past few years than the men's teams. If that is the case then they should be getting paid more than the men do from the US Soccer Federation, no? What they get paid by their clubs is a different matter of course. I guess that this is not the case in most countries though, but if you are playing for the men's England team, you are probably earning enough to afford to forego some of your earning for England to be shared with the women

Jeez, I knew I was good at this game, but still!

I replace Michael Sleggs with Brendan Grace Sorry @ZonkoVille77...

Michael has Slegged it https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-48935431 And at 33 years old he's a 30 pointer!

Probably the best possible death announcement pun you can get!

John McCririck has gone for an eternal NAP...

Holland V Japan was probably my favourite game of the tournament, and Japan played the better football in the 2nd half and were really unlucky to lose

From 2013 to 2018 (the last set of published accounts), we had generated £167m of cash (revenues less costs) that could be spent on transfers. We spent a net of £282m on transfers, ergo we spent more than we earnt over those 5 years. Maybe there is a bit of book balancing going on, spending more than you earn is not really a sustainable business model. The shareholder loan for the Main Stand redevelopment was meant to have been paid off over 5.5 years at roughly £20m a year, over the first 2 years we paid off £10m compared to the expected £40m, that could be one thing that cash is being used for and constraining the budget

Janelle Monae as had put on a good show again

I was watching that on iPlayer, was great. Shame they had Dave and Little Simz on at the same time, 2 of the best UK rappers at the moment