Category: Opinion

Coming out of the World Cup Break: No, this isn’t the 2018 Orlando Pride

Posted on by RJ Allen

Starting the second half on the National Women’s Soccer League from the World Cup break the Orlando Pride look to shake off the doldrums of starting this season without a win. Has this been a carryover from the end of the 2018 season which was rough goings for the Orlando Pride?

The team underachieved last year and played itself out of playoff contention as the Pride dropped points until the bitter end of the season. There was a cloud of general malaise hanging over the team which led to the parting of the ways with Coaches Tom Sermanni and Khano Smith. The organization also replaced the general manager which lead to a mostly stagnant off-season.

A new chapter in team history began with the appointment of a new general manager and the hire of Marc Skinner from Birmingham City Women’s FC, a club which has held firmly to fourth on the Women’s Super League table against the likes of Chelsea, Manchester City, and Arsenal.

Coach Skinner has a difficult task of instilling a new system in a three-week long preseason with a revolving door for his national team players. Orlando only had all of its players together in camp the Thursday before the first match. Compounding the challenge is the schedule of the fixtures to start the season.

The results haven’t come, but the performance on the pitch has progressively gotten better. The core players have demonstrated some of the ball and player movement Skinner is looking to instill in Orlando; however, the touch in the final third has still left the team lacking.

Beyond the results on the field, Orlando has evolved its organizational structure. First, the club appointed team-specific general manager, Erik Ustruck, who is focused on adding players Skinner hopes will increase the level of quality on the squad; such as, with the signing of Scottish international Claire Emslie while allowing the head coach to concentrate on tactics, player development, and game planning for opponents. In addition, the club has committed to the future of the Pride as the team announcement stated, “…first-ever customized, exclusive training facility…tailored to and used only by a women’s team.” While the future appears bright, currently all Orlando is looking for is the first win at Houston against the Dash. The last meeting was won by Houston on an early Kealia Ohai goal which stood up to get the three points.

The obvious key to victory for the Pride comes down to the fundamentals. Players have to find their finishing boots because the offense for Orlando has been awful. The only two goals scored by the team thus far have come from a center back on a set piece. Things haven’t worked out from the run of play. In regards to his side and the preparation for the match Marc Skinner said, “We’ve got to get to a point where we can play anybody. I’m happy with the progress, not the results I will say that, but we’re happy with the progress that the players are showing. If we can limit the mistakes and make the other team make more mistakes we’ll be in a good place.”

Even though signs are pointing to a season for a rebuild, the serious work for that won’t be done until after this year. Until then, the players on the roster will attempt to demonstrate to Skinner they belong in his long-term plans. No excuses on national team players being absent, the players remaining should show progress in their development and bloom. The real question is will this be enough to move Orlando up the standings in the league?  



A Referees Perspective on the Women’s World Cup (so far)

Posted on by RJ Allen

Hi, my name is Ian and this is my first post here. I like to start every post with a disclaimer, so please bear with me. 

Disclaimer:

I am not a PRO or FIFA referee. In fact, I’m not even a “professional” referee. I primarily referee adult recreational and youth leagues and write software as my primary line of work. On average, I am involved in around 150 games a season, most of the U16 and over and as many major tournaments as I can find my way into. It is solely my intention to look at incidents and explain how I feel the IFAB Laws of the Game apply, were applied, or should have been applied.

If you’re interested in becoming a referee, please check this link for information on how to locate your state officiating group.

Now that we’ve taken that out of the way, let’s jump on into it…

The Laws of the Game are Pretty Okay

This post is mostly spurred on in response to Charles’ post about the Laws of the Game needing an Overhaul, but I’m not going to directly argue anything. I think Charles did a great job discussing some of the pitfalls of how application of the Laws of the Game have caused a degree of chaos throughout this years World Cup, but I’m willing to argue that they’re actually pretty dang good…it’s just different look than we’re used to seeing, especially in women’s soccer.

The Laws of the Game have been evolving at a rapid pace over the last couple years as has the IFAB. This year, they even went as far as to have a mobile app created to help give more people access to the Laws of the Game without needing a third party PDF reader nor the Google-fu required to know how to get the current Laws and not previous versions.

This World Cup is the first time we’re seeing the 2019-2020 Laws of the Game applied in an actual competition. I believe most of the teams had friendlies throughout the spring that the new Laws were used, but most of those did not have VAR or any of the other intricacies of the full tournament since they were just friendlies.

Between the changes in the Laws of the Game and the introduction of VAR, I think we’re having a peak into the future of the sport at the highest levels.

Ultimately, I think it’s good, but it will take some getting used to. 

I think to facilitate this conversation a bit, I’m going to try and generalize some of the comments and questions I’ve seen come across my Twitter feed and respond directly to them. 

“Why is the Assistant Referee holding their flag down on offside? They should be calling it immediately!”

Offside is an extremely complicated section of the Laws of the Game. In fact, it’s complicated enough that it actually has its own section. It’s complicated to the point that I’m extremely hesitant to even approach the subject, but I’m going to and I’m going to do it with some broad generalizations.

For a while now, the Laws have been working on ironing out a definition between an “offside position” and an “offside offense“. In between those two definitions, there are a list of situations that reset of offside position. This creates a degree of subjectivity, but tries to make concrete that there is a difference. A player can be in an offside position all day and, as long as they don’t become involved in play, never be called for it. That same player who is hanging out offside forever, can be completely saved by a defender making a bad play on a long ball.

At every level of the game, referees and assistant referees are being told to wait and make sure that an offside offense has occurred before putting the flag up. In all games, you’ll sometimes see an assistant have to make a 50 yard run just to make sure that the attacking player commits that offside offense and then have to make the long slog back to the half line to raise the flag. 

This is how it should be. If there’s a chance that someone other than the player in the offside position plays the ball, then you have to wait and see.

The introduction of VAR takes that one step further. 

Now, instead of relying on a single persons line of sight, the referee crew has 4 extra people with an Orwellian amount of cameras that can back up those calls. It’s possible to give an even longer wait and make absolutely sure that there was, in fact, an offside offense before you call off a goal or a potential goal scoring opportunity.

It’s allowed the ability to go from potentially calling a good goal back because of potential offside offense to allowing play to continue until it can be verified that there was an offside offense that needed to be dealt with.

I don’t have any hard numbers, but I’d be willing to be there are more goals that have been allowed because of that wait than there are goals that have been taken back.

“What are defenders supposed to do now? Play with their hands behind their back? This is ruining the game”

Well, you see, this is a fun one, because the Laws haven’t changed too much regarding handling. This years changes mostly just took away some of the vagueness that previous iterations had exposed. Instead of using words like “deliberate” or “intentional” (I wrote about those here), the Laws now try to better define where the hands should and shouldn’t be.

All that said, the couple hand balls that I’ve seen called have always been handling offenses. The difference is that now we have someone watching from another angle that can confidently make that call. 

Let’s have a little thought experiment:

You’re the assistant referee. There’s a quick counter attack starting at the half line and breaking down the nearside of the field. You have to watch three things:

  1. Offside
  2. In/Out of Bounds
  3. Potential Fouls

At the 18 yard box, a cross is fired in and takes a weird bounce. The attacking player is between you and the defender.

Can you make a judgement on why that ball took a weird bounce?

Probably not.

Okay, same scenario, but now you’re the center official. You’re trying to run on something like a diagonal line across the field to keep the bulk of play trapped between you and your assistant referee. Your run had to start from the other third of the field, so you’re going in top gear trying to get back into position ahead of or in line with the play. You see the cross and the ball go off at a weird angle, but you’re about 5 yards behind the defenders shoulder. 

Can you make a judgement call on that weird bounce?

Also, probably not.

In either situation, would you feel confident giving a penalty kick?

I would think no.

This is where VAR solves the problem. The referee still has ultimate responsibility over the match and can make those decisions if need be. However, they also have a barrage of cameras looking at all of the angles to figure out that weird bounce and a voice in their ear telling them whether or not it’s worth going back and having a second look.

If it’s not, don’t sweat it. If it is, go back and make it right.

I heard a saying this morning that went something along the lines of “if it’s a foul in the middle of the field, it’s a foul in the box” and that’s 100% true. The difference being is that one rarely leads to a goal and the other rarely doesn’t. In the interest of maintaining a match, the referee may have hesitation about giving that foul in the box because of that certain outcome.

VAR addresses that hesitation.

In Closing

There are a lot of intricacies in soccer. There always have been and there always will be. With or with out VAR.

At the World Cup though, it’s absolutely imperative that even with all those potential situations, it’s important that everything is as consistent as possible. While I, as a fan, may not agree with all of the calls being made I can easily see a clear line that is being held by the officiating crews. You can see consistency across games and across days that I can really appreciate.

It will take some getting used to at the large stage, but I think in the long run we’ll be better off for it.

Alex Morgan, Ada Hegerberg, and the Conundrum of Awards Voting

Posted on by RJ Allen

Ada Hegerberg doesn’t play for Norway. But this isn’t a piece about if she should or shouldn’t play for them.

Alex Morgan plays for the Orlando Pride and US women’s national team. But this is no more a piece on Morgan’s club choice than it is about Hegerberg’s choice to not play for her country.

This is a piece about how we see players and how we vote for awards.

The awards voting is larger than Hegerberg vs Morgan. But they do stand on different sides of a large gulf. On one you have Hegerberg who is in maybe the best club form in the world. On the other you have Morgan who has been excellent for country while having lingering questions about her club form. So for now we stand in the middle and look right and then left.

Awards are complicated when they span time and leagues and bring in factors that can be as complicated as league strength and the roles players play on different teams.

It is made all the more complex because of the way the calendar in soccer works. It is the four year cycle that reigns here and not a calendar that any non-soccer person would understand. It doesn’t matter if you count it as World Cup, Olympics then two off years or if you count it two off years, the World Cup and finally the Olympics. Either way you count you have two on years and two off. And in those years where there is a major international event that crosses from CONCACAF to UEFA to Oceania to the rest of the world we are often heavy handed with support for who scores the most goals in a month or few weeks long event. Because the World Cup and the Olympics are big deals. And they should be big deals.

When I look at Hegerberg’s body of work and the only thing that I am given is her work for Lyon it presents a mental hurdle for me. And that isn’t on her. Club is all she has elected to play and she is under no obligation to change that to make voters more comfortable. While one may quibble if she should or should not play for Norway, frankly that has nothing to do with her performance for Lyon. In the context of voting when judging someone, you can only judge them on what they have given you. On a report card for Hegerberg it would simply be listed as N/A under country.

For Morgan it becomes a little more complicated. She has elected to play club. Partly because the US women’s national team players all play in the NWSL. And in the choice to both play club and country, Morgan has opened herself up to having a larger body of work to judge and all that comes with the league she plays for. The NWSL is, at least in my estimation, more competitive than just about any league in the world. And that changes how we see some players and it changes what those players are able to accomplish on the field. Morgan for club and Morgan for country are often about as related as first cousins. They share a passing resemblance, sometimes strikingly so, but often you can tell they are two different people.

So the judging of Alex Morgan for awards becomes harder because the math is more complex.

It is not Alex Morgan > or < Ada Hegerberg > or < Sam Kerr > or < whoever else you want.

It becomes the much more complex and much less elegant (Alex Morgan for country + Alex Morgan for club / what you think should matter more or if one should matter at all) > or < (Ada Hegerberg for club) > or < (Sam Kerr for country + Sam Kerr for club / what you think should matter more or if one should matter at all) > or < so on and so on.

What I keep coming back to is how are we supposed to judge when all the factors become this complex? And is it fair to judge them based on what they’ve chosen to give us versus what we think they should have given us?

At the end of the day I believe that it is fair to judge more heavily if a player plays for their country in a year when country does take center stage. And in those years where there is no major international tournament that spans the globe I do believe giving more preference to club play is fair.

But I will add this, if you don’t value the fight or the choice Hegerberg has made then it really doesn’t matter if it’s a World Cup year or not, you wouldn’t vote for her. And if you think Morgan should be better at club before winning awards based on her performance for her country then a Golden Ball and/or Boot won’t change your mind.

Voting for awards ultimately comes down to what you value in a player and what you don’t. It is a reflecting glass aimed back at those who cast a ballot. 

Three Results Reviewed: This World Cup Has Been A Blast So Far

Posted on by RJ Allen

Sometimes I forget how much I love soccer. It sounds strange but after recording and editing podcasts and writing pieces and editing those and editing the works of others, it can sometimes feel like a tad bit of a slog.

And then I started watching this World Cup. And all of that slog was washed away like a summer rain washing the pollen out of the air.

The World Cup has been, by and large, pretty damn amazing. We’ve gotten to see historic goals, historic points, players doing fun things, teams seeing their nation’s colors in the stands. And there are still 40 plus games to go.

There have been some great results so far. Let’s take a look at the three that have some big impacts.

Argentina 0 – 0 Japan

Argentina has about as much support from their federation as Pope Clement VII had from King Henry VIII. That’s to say support in the negative direction.

But they did it. Argentina held for 90 minutes against a young Japanese team. And they didn’t just hold, didn’t just bunker for 90 minutes and try to hold on by the skin of their teeth. They played soccer. They fought. They showed a country which hadn’t really ever been allowed to see this team due to federation neglect that they were ready for the world’s stage.

They shouldn’t have to prove themselves to their federation. They should be supported as each men’s national team and women’s national team should be. It frankly sucks that they have to show they can compete before they will get the support they need to go out and win games.

But in this game they did show they aren’t going to just roll over after making it to the biggest stage in the world. They have fight. And that was pretty neat to see.

Italy 2 – 1 Australia

It’s not really a secret that I am a fan of the Australian team. I find them fun to watch, outside of a backline that leaves me questioning why bad things happen to good people.

But watching Italy and Barbara Bonansea leading the charge out there was magnificent.

Italy played like they knew the world was watching, and they wanted to put on a show for each and every eyeball on them. Bonansea scored the latest non extra time goal at 90+5 to take 1 point to 3 for the Italians and really put Australia against the ropes for the rest of the group stage. Now matches Australia may not have had to think about all that hard are life and death. And Italy in their green, red and white, have a shot at not only leaving the group but doing so on top.

Margherita pizza all around.

France 4 – 0 South Korea

One of these matches is not like the others, I get it.

But France, sweet France did the damn thing to set off the World Cup on the right foot.

France looked like they knew this was their event to win. And really, it is. And while some teams (Canada) have gone in to events and let that weight crush them, it looks like France is going in to the event and letting it lift them up. They have a chance to create a new narrative for themselves as a team that can win the damn thing and not just a super talented team that chokes. The idea of them as the lovable team that can’t get it done might finally be put to rest.

And knowing they are on a crash course for a meeting with the US in the quarterfinals only makes watching them more exciting.

What are your favorite moments?

The Tragedy of 13-0

Posted on by RJ Allen

The USWNT scored 13 times against Thailand.

Morgan 12′, 53′, 74′, 81′, 87′
Lavelle 20′, 56′
Horan 32′
Mewis 50′, 54′
Rapinoe 79′
Pugh 85′
Lloyd 90+2′

And after each goal the US celebrated. Sometimes with the bench and sometimes just the players on the field. For Lavelle, Horan, Mewis, and Pugh it was their first World Cup game. Scoring then is an incredible accomplishment. For Morgan, she now shares a record with Michelle Akers for most goals scored in a Women’s World Cup game. For Rapinoe and Lloyd, it was a good day at the office.

And it felt bad. I felt bad. Watching it left me with a bitter taste in my mouth and a slightly uneasy feeling as I heard the chants of USA from the stands.
It took me a while to get my feelings in order. I went from “The US players should be pumped” to “maybe they should have taken their foot off the gas” to “score all the goals always” and around and around.

I finally settled on my feelings and how I see this game. And in those thoughts a few things are true. None of them are the fault of the players.


1) The US players have every right to celebrate after scoring goals.

2) Thailand earned their trip to the World Cup but are overall a pretty poor squad

3) The bulk of the feeling of grossness steams from FIFA.

I don’t blame Sam Mewis for being ecstatic over scoring a brace in her first game playing in a World Cup. I don’t think Morgan was over the line even counting the goals she scored after her fourth. And honestly, I will always be down for Rapinoe twirling and then sliding after she scores.

But at some point the joy of seeing all that turned bitter. Not really because of the US players but because of the context.

Thailand is a team without a great deal of institutionalized support behind them. And while their players have been on both ends of 13-0 wins, (Thailand beat Indonesia 13-0 in a friendly in 2018) I can’t help but wish more money, more training, and more resources were going to this team as they headed toward these games.

But really, at the end of the day, this lays at FIFA’s doorstep.
FIFA has roughly more money than Gringotts Wizarding Bank has Goblins. By not giving support to the federations for the women’s teams and not demanding that federations use that money, or for the larger federations their own, they are enabling results like this.

FIFA could have prevented this but they are too worried about running studies and having their partners run ads for the next generation of players.

The worst part of this game was many of us, myself included, had the first reaction of blaming players for being happy that they did an incredibly hard thing well and scored a goal or goals in a World Cup game. That is the biggest loss in this match. That FIFA has to pit these, one against the other, while we often spare them our wrath.

FIFA has about $2,700,000,000 in their reserves. They could give every country on earth, all 195 of them, $10,000,000 and send a team to make sure the money went to the women’s teams and not into pockets of the perpetrators of the current oppression and they would still have a half billion dollars left in their reserves.

FIFA could change 13-0 games. They could. They chose not to. Remember that.

The US beat Thailand 13-0. I was there. It felt gross.

Posted on by RJ Allen

I just attended my first World Cup game featuring the United States, my home country. A game which they won by an absurd margin. Am I happy? No. I feel gross. I wish I hadn’t been there. I wish I had gone to Rennes, or just stayed back in Paris. I wish I hadn’t been in a stadium full of Americans, cheering on – with chants of “USA! USA!” and “We Want More!” ringing out around me, while their team racked up double digit goals.

I’m not trying to lob accusations at anyone. I understand that it’s complicated. People paid a lot of money, took a huge amount of time and energy to come here. This is one of the only chances they may ever get to see their national team play in the World Cup. They want to celebrate, and they have every right to take some joy in the process. I get all that.

And still, I have a sour taste in my mouth, and my stomach is churning.

The fans made a deliberate choice to put their own joy over recognizing the pain of others

Because, in the bigger picture, this wasn’t an event to celebrate. The US obliterated the opposition, and they were able to do so because they have fifty years of institutional support behind them. Thailand was overrun, not because there is no one in Thailand with the ability to play soccer. They were overrun because there is no network of support to nurture and develop the people with the potential. There is no coaching system to train them. No resources to pay them.

That inequality is a part of the game, and there’s no way to run a tournament like the World Cup and not have it play a role. So the solution can’t simply be to throw up our hands and give up. We still want a tournament, and that means the teams with more resources are very likely to beat the teams without them.

But we don’t have to celebrate it. And the fans in the crowd stepped over that line. I am sure that none of the meant it maliciously. I don’t think they’re bad people. But as a group, they exhibited behavior that we should lament, not valorize.

The coaches made a deliberate choice to run up the score

I don’t blame the players. They kept going because that’s what they do. Maybe they could have cooled it with the big celebrations after the 8th or 9th goal, but in the moment, I completely get it. So while I wish that they had decided to dial things back a bit, I don’t blame them.

But I do blame the coaches. The US made three substitutions. Three forwards. They finished the game with five strikers on the pitch – six, really, if you count Crystal Dunn. There was no need for that.

I understand why they did it. Strikers work on confidence, and you want all your attacking options to feel like they’re in the zone. You want to give them a chance to get their feet wet in a low pressure situation. I get it.

But you could equally argue that the US would have benefited from ratcheting everything down five notches – save legs, save energy, coast to an easy 6-0 win and call it a day. The US does this all the time, and suffers no psychological problems. I’m thinking of the semifinals from the CONCACAF qualifying against Jamaica, for example.

If Ellis had subbed in three more defensive players, she would have communicated to the team: now is the time to practice seeing out a victory. That would have been a perfectly valid tactical goal, would have caused no problems with psychological management, and would have kept this in the realm of a normal thumping. Instead, she subbed on the strikers, and told her team to keep going full pelt. She told them: we want to be the bully.

And yes, sometimes being the bully works. But that doesn’t make it right. And it certainly doesn’t make it something that I personally want to associate myself with. And please don’t bring up goal difference. The US is going to blow Sweden out of the water in goal difference, and that was true by the time they scored their fifth goal.

Sometimes, feeling bad is the only good thing to do

This should have been a happy occasion. I’m at the World Cup. I just got to watch the team I’m covering win a famous victory. It should have been fun.

It wasn’t fun. It was just a sad reminder of how unequal the playing field is, and little is being done to remedy that inequality. None of it is any one person’s fault, and I don’t want to imply that US fans or US coaches caused any of this. They’re merely small parts in a huge story. Poor players who strut and fret their hour upon the stage.

But tonight a lot of people had a choice: do I do the hard thing, and swallow my sense of self just a little bit? Do I put myself in the shoes of the others out there who don’t have what I have? Do I do those things, even acknowledging that it’s going to dull the joy a bit?

I understand why everyone did what they did. No one was being unreasonable. No one was being intentionally cruel. So I hope this doesn’t read like an attack on anyone. I’m certain that I have made many similar choices in my own life. But here, tonight, it felt wrong. And it felt important for me to try and explain why. Even though it was hard.

 

VAR is Here: Be Careful What You Wish For

Posted on by RJ Allen

There was a lot of excitement when it was announced that this World Cup would feature Video Assistant Referee (VAR). This was often framed on equality grounds. The men had it, and it would have been absurd to not make it available for the women as well. But in a classic case of ‘be careful what you wish for,’ many folks have recently discovered that they’re not actually that thrilled with VAR now that it’s here.

To be honest, I find myself in that group. And it’s a little surprising.

I’ve always been a fan of integrating technology into the game to ensure that referees can get calls right. But the devil is in the details, and it increasingly feels like the details are killing us. In this case, a combination of two things I’ve always liked (instant replay and a clarification of the incoherent ‘deliberate handball’ rule) have combined to produce a monster.

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Now, with almost any ball hitting an arm in the box producing a penalty, and with the ability to catch every millisecond of play with video review, we’re going to get more and more of these penalties from a player is hit point-blank in the arm.

In fact, if I were coaching a team, I would encourage them to deliberately shoot at the arm. It’s clearly a winning strategy (Liverpool just won the men’s Champions League final this way), and it’s viable 25 yards away from the goal where the chance of creating a real goal is minuscule.

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But for all that, the real problem with VAR has been the interminable delay between an offside play and the whistle actually being blown. This is the policy because they need to let play continue to see what the result would have been.

We saw this to an extreme degree in Australia-Italy where probably a dozen plays were allowed to run out, only to be retroactively nullified by the offside flag.

The explanation for this change is here:

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The principle does make sense. They feel that a false positive is unrecoverable (you can’t recreate the state of play) but a false negative is harmless (you can just reset play to where offside infraction took place). But in practice, a false negative is anything but harmless. There is a lot of emotion and energy wrapped up in the play, and it all gets wasted for very little benefit.

That’s frustrating for the fans at home, but also for the players themselves. After the Australia-Italy match, Sam Kerr said it was “really frustrating” that plays were called back so often, breaking up the game, and also stealing time (since only five minutes were added despite all the delays) that they would have desperately wanted to try and find a late equalizer. For Italy, Cristiana Girelli said much the same: “Sometimes you score the goal and then you have to wait to check. It’s strange.”

In a pre-VAR world, the assistant referee would have flagged these plays immediately, and we all would have gone on with our business. As Kerr said, “if it’s offside, it’s offside. Just call it.” 

There were mistakes in that world, absolutely. And it’s understandable that people want to fix the mistakes. I want to fix the mistakes too. But it sometimes feels like the technology has overtaken the purpose for which it was designed.

There’s a close analogy here to baseball – my other favorite sport – where the advent of instant replay has turned something that went uncalled for 150 years (the millimeter of space that often emerges between a basestealer and the base when they pop up) into a subject for unending litigation. It’s technically true that umpires were simply missing this call for all those years, but it’s also true that no one was harmed in the process and the game is now more tedious for all that it’s technically right.

Still, the reality is that VAR probably isn’t going anywhere, and is only likely to be expanded into new zones going forward. That is unlikely to include women’s soccer in most venues, at least for a little while. But while there’s clearly an element of inequality in this – the new technology being available for men and not women – we also might want to savor the fresh air while it’s still available. And hope that the powers-that-be come up with some sensible rule changes to manage the downside here, and make the application of the technology fit more seamlessly into the free-flowing, exciting game that we’ve loved for so long.

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The Good and the Bad: Updates on the Afghan WNT

Posted on by RJ Allen

In the first days of the 2019 Women’s World Cup, there have been good and bad updates from a federation that has made headlines in the last six months. On Saturday, June 8th FIFA concluded their investigation into the accusations of rape and sexual assault made by players for the Afghanistan WNT against the federation’s President, Keramuudin Karim. This announcement comes only a few days after the Guardian published an article saying that FIFA and the Asian Football Confederation knew about accusations of assault as early as April 2017 and that the Afghan federation paid off the accusers to keep them quiet. 

The accusations of rape and sexual assault within the Afghanistan federation first came to light in November 2018. Suzanne Wrack, who has done the best reporting on this story amongst Western journalists, wrote an exclusive story including interviews with the players who had been assaulted. The tales were disturbing. They spoke of a bedroom inside his office that relies on fingerprint technology to open and close, so that players were trapped once the president had lured them in there. When the players tried to talk to their federation, they were met with aggressive denial. 

FIFA announced they were opening an investigation, but I think many of us believed the investigation would not wield good results. To the contrary, FIFA announced on Saturday morning that President Karim has been issued a lifetime ban from FIFA and he will be fined over $1 million. They found him guilty of abusing his position and abusing female players. Khalida Popal, the director of the Afghanistan WNT, said on Twitter that this was a success, but now they are looking for the coaches and General Secretary of the Afghanistan federation to receive similar bans. 

The decision from FIFA is a good first step. But it comes just days after the Guardian revealed that both the Asian Football Confederation and FIFA knew about accusations of abuse as early as April 2017. This differs from what FIFA and AFC officials had said in the past. The article also says that President Karim and others were involved in paying off five girls who launched a sexual assault case in July/August 2017. Four of those five girls were minors.

FIFA still has a long way to go when it comes to challenging abuse in both men’s and women’s football. The punishment handed down to President Karim is a good sign that FIFA is engaged. Hopefully they continue to take the necessary steps to ensure accountability and safety for players around the world. 

 

Women’s World Cup Daily – June 7

Posted on by RJ Allen

June 7: Matchday 1

I have a rundown of the game over at Stars and Stripes FC, which is where you should go for a discussion of the match itself.

I want to use my space here to throw out a few other random thoughts about the experience. First things first: this was (by far) the best-attended women’s soccer game I’ve ever been to. I haven’t been to any of the other big tournaments, so I don’t really have a comparison, but it felt intense. I know that most games in the tournament won’t have this kind of atmosphere, but wow, what a way to start.

In terms of the game itself, the conclusions are pretty obvious: France is really good, the support from the crowd was incredible, and that has to be terrifying for anyone who will play them.

Assorted thoughts:

– Corinne Diacre rules.

– VAR. Hope everyone is ready for it because it’s going to be wild! It was nice to get the first big VAR controversy out of the way in a game where it didn’t really matter. Even if it meant losing out on a truly lovely goal. But there are a couple keys things we should all keep in mind. First, all goals are automatically reviewed. What’s more, the judgment doesn’t defer to the result on the field in the way we’ve come to expect. That’s why this particular goal was overruled. That means: no need for ‘clear and convincing evidence.’ VAR will simply assess the facts and issue a judgment.

– I keep reading pieces from (reputable) international sources discussing the #USWNT which focus on Carli Lloyd as a key player. On the one hand, this is funny. But there’s a deeper point to make here. Even with the massive expansion in resources and availability of information, the scale of women’s soccer conversations is still quite small. Which means outside a very narrow band of engagement, even relatively good sources are kind of feeling their way through the dark. Under those conditions, you grab hold of the name that rings some bells. If the name is Christine Sinclair, you’re in luck – she really is still essential. But if the name is Carli Lloyd, you’re four years behind the game.

Thinking about this, I’ve also concluded that we should probably be equally skeptical of US-based sources (even good ones) who highlight mostly veterans as the key players for other squads. Is Caroline Seger actually that important anymore? Fran Kirby was the next big thing in 2015, but is she actually essential in 2019? In both cases, I think the answer is still yes. But can I really be sure? I’m certainly going to try to be careful about this more going forward in my own assessments.

– I swung by the ‘fan village’ at Les Halles in the center of Paris today. They’ve blocked off a huge chunk of real estate in a prime location, right next to the Église Saint-Eustache (see picture). It looks like it could be a pretty nice place to watch a game. If I have the time, I’ll definitely try to catch one there.

FIFA fan village - Les Halles

– The opening ceremony was a little goofy, but a nice bit of fun as well. You haven’t really lived until you’ve seen 300 soccer dancers in motion.

Tomorrow’s action:

  • Germany – China. Germany should win. But if they don’t, this group suddenly gets very interesting.
  • Spain – South Africa. Spain have loads of potential but need to show that they have figured out how to produce some goals. Starting out with the weakest team in the group is good news on that front. But if they can’t score in the first half, things could start to get pretty nervy.
  • Norway – Nigeria. This is a huge game for both teams. No one in this group should count on getting a result against France, so taking points off each other will be essential. Norway should win here, but Nigeria are no slouches.

I’ll be heading to Le Havre to see Spain and South Africa, and will be on the train during all of Norway-Nigeria, but should be able to see some of the other game.

The Women’s World Cup is Upon Us. Finally.

Posted on by RJ Allen

Tomorrow the Women’s World Cup kicks off. Finally, no more waiting, no more wondering who will be there and who will be watching from home. Actual matches will replace mere banter being being shot back and forth.

And on the eve of this great day, on this almost-holy night, I have one thing to ask.

Enjoy yourselves.

The waiting is over. It’s time. Time to enjoy the matches and the upsets. Time to to enjoy the players on every team. Everyone dreams about scoring the winning goal in the final, but even those who play for teams with no chance winning it all, they will still get a moment of glory. Regardless of what happens in their matches, they made it to the Women’s World Cup. They made it.

It is the job of those in the media to try and tell the story of these matches–these players who have dedicated their lives to their sport, their teams, their undying belief they could make it one day, even if they couldn’t see it clearly. We will write and break down and try to put the unexplainable to words. We’ll try to explain what happened, and why.

But that’s our job, not yours. Your job is to enjoy the ride. To watch your team and hope they live up to all you want them to be. To support them if they don’t quite live up to their own promise. And that can’t happen if you get stuck in the overthinking and breaking down, the endless debates over just what outside back should Jill Ellis use today. Let us get lost in all those details while you get lost in the wonder.

Because it is wondrous.

It is a wonder to behold Scotland and Jamaica suiting up for the first time. To know Kim Little and Bunny Shaw will get to show off to the world. There is wonder in what they do with the ball at their feet and a few yards of space in front of them. There is wonder in Lucy Bronze defending or Amandine Henry directing her midfield or Hedvig Lindahl organizing a backline.

There will be upsets and heartbreak and players stepping off this stage never to return. Marta and Christine Sinclair and Carli Lloyd will likely have their last bows. And names few of us know will soon be on everyone’s lips. There is glory to be had in these games.

That is the magic of the moment. No one really knows what will happen. No matter how many matches we’ve seen or how many hours we’ve spent poring over the data, we just can’t know.

So sit back, get something cool to drink and enjoy the magic that only comes around every four years. Before we know it, the moment will be gone again.