Are American females better then American males at soccer?

Question

Dont' the American womens football team win the world cup all the time and the American Male football team win squid?

Isn't a bit embarrasing that your women are better at the worlds number one sport than yourselves?

P.S football means soccer!

Answer 1

Yeah, I think the US women's team might even have beaten England's womens team - isn't their goalie called Hope Solo?  

If you think about it, women's funding is a lot less than men's in the Uk - but the men's funding in the US isn't going to be as big as the men's funding in the UK - so it may be comparative advantage :-)

Edit - Rebel Man - I don't even know if there are sports scholarships in the UK the way there are in the US - maybe that is the 'pull factor' for the best female footballers to head to the US, and another reason why the women's team is doing better than the men's :-)

Edit - I can't believe how many people are saying football is feminine - in the UK football is seen as the epitome of masculinity - in fact, men's mags generally focus on beer, women and football.  Men who don't like football are seen as effeminate.  Funny how cultures differ :-)

Answer 2

But the thing is, no one cares about soccer in the U.S.

Answer 3

Hockey is way more popular than soccer in America.  Why does it have to be embarrassing?

Answer 4

As a soccer fan I have to say that seems true. However, is because the women have had to face weaker competition but Landon Donovan of the USA team is pretty good and did a superb job at the World CUP '06. However, female soccer is highly underrated and mens' soccer still gets more attention. I think both of them have their own individual strenghts and weaknesses. Can't wait for Euro '08!

Answer 5

The women´s world cup in 2007 has been won by the German women (not for the first time). But it is a world wide phenomenon:  What had never been thought possible 30 years ago - women are playing soccer, and women´s soccer is improving rapidly. In Germany meanwhile playing soccer is very popular for girls.

I wonder if there will ever be a game of female against male teams in future. What would happen if the female team would win the match ?

Answer 6

head to head, the men would win all the time.

the men just face tougher competition than the womens team.

a crappy lower tier mens team could probably beat the womens team.

Answer 7

American women aren't better at football than American men. What you have to consider is that football is not a huge sport for women in most countries. That means that the U.S., where soccer is very popular for girls, faces less competition. However, most countries have a lot of support for men's teams which creates way more competition.

In mens soccer, the U.S. national team faces giants like Brazil, Italy, Germany, Argentina, France, England, Portugal...

American women's teams rank higher than the men's teams but their competition is reletively less tough.

Answer 8

Here in the South at least soccer is viewed as more of a girls' sport than a boys' sport.  Most colleges in the South only have women's teams, and not men's.  

Men all over the US who are great atheletes usually go into (American) football, basketball, baseball, or up north hockey.  That's because they all have leagues that pay tons of money.  Women don't have a big money-making sport like that to lure them away, so those who are interested in soccer play it.  The only sports in the US that women can really make any money in are basketball (not much there), tennis, and golf.  

I don't know if I'd say they're better than the men.  That might be an interesting match.

Eleanor brings up an interesting point with the funding.  My college's women's soccer team had a player from Britain who mentioned once that the US put a lot more money into it than they do over there, which is why she came over here (plus you can play sports and get an education over here, which is apparently a rare thing in the world at the college level).  I'd imagine that men's soccer gets a lot more funding over there than it does here though.

Eleanor- From all I've heard, we're about the only country that combines athletics and academics like that.  So I doubt you do over there.

Answer 9

Yes, most of us are cultured enough to know that we are the only ones that call "football" soccer.

While our women's team is higher ranked (3rd)  within their league than the U.S. men's team (21st) is within theirs, I am not sure if they are better players.  I suppose we would have to have a U.S. Male vs. Female Soccer game to find out.

As others have stated, men's soccer is not as popular as women's soccer in the U.S. because of other traditionally male sports in America (mainly, football, basketball and baseball)...with exception to the North East.

Answer 10

In the US men rightly despise soccer as an effeminate sport--rather comparable to synchronized swimming.   Thus our  gifted male athletes stay away from soccer in droves, allowing the ladies to excel in that ladylike "sport."

Answer 11

Apparently.

Answer 12

Women's soccer in America possesses one thing the U.S. men does not - identity.

Men's soccer also doesn't draw the nation's best athletes - football, baseball and basketball do.

Women's soccer has a program that young players aspire to. Most college-age American male players don't know what the U.S. style of play is, because America really has none.

There's no stability at the top.

Answer 13

Not really, as football ( football means soccer ) is a sport for those ( how to be delicate about this?) less than masculine.

Now football ( football means football ) is a real mans sport. ( even though I have no time to watch it )

Answer 14

jonmcn49 and others need to realise that football (as in the one with a round ball, and no homo-erotic padding) is the true word sport, and is very masculine.   American football is pretty much a non-entity anywhere outside the US and is a rugby derivative anyway.

In the US, football is played less by men anyway.  You go more for the American football, basketball and so on.

Answer 15

if women are better, i dont care coz were equal.