Dear Sports Fan,
How is the women’s World Cup different from the men’s?
Thanks,
Derek
Dear Derek,
One of the beautiful things about soccer is that there are very few differences between the women’s version of the sport and the men’s. This is surprisingly rare in sports. Women’s ice hockey, field hockey, and lacrosse have drastically different rules, which mostly make them less rough and sometimes more difficult to play than the men’s version. The rules for women who want to play baseball are so different that we call the resulting sport by an entirely different name: softball. American football, long played exclusively by men, is only now beginning to be played by women in significant numbers. Ironically, this has led to women’s football being much more identical to its male counterpart than most other sports. The only real difference between men’s and women’s American football is that, like in basketball, women play with a slightly smaller and lighter ball. The Women’s World Cup is identical to the men’s edition (here’s a post on how that works) except for two major differences. Both differences are temporary and are likely to disappear as time passes.
You’ve probably heard about the first difference. The women’s World Cup will be played on artificial turf instead of grass. When this was announced, it was so odious to the majority of players that many of them banded together to sue the Canadian Soccer Association and FIFA on charges of gender discrimination. The men’s World Cup never has and never will be played on anything but grass. Any organizer that even dreamed of trying to use turf would get laughed right off the planet. Unfortunately, the lawsuit eventually failed despite reported offers by several companies to install grass fields for free. You can see why many of the World Cup players had a special reason beyond all the obvious corruption-related reasons to celebrate when Sepp Blatter stepped down the other day. Why is playing on turf so bad? Tactically speaking, the ball bounces and rolls differently on turf which changes how the game is played and offers advantages to some teams over others. There’s also the issue of injuries. Playing on turf makes the type of sliding and falling that’s common in soccer a distinctly painful experience. For evidence, we need look no further than a tweet from U.S. national team striker, Sydney Leroux:
https://twitter.com/sydneyleroux/status/323630086249140224/
Of course, there isn’t a single player on any of the World Cup teams that wouldn’t volunteer for that type of injury if it meant winning a World Cup. The bigger issue is the thought that turf contributes to more major injuries as well. If there are a rash of blown out knees and ankles during this World Cup, players, coaches, and fans will be pointing to the turf.
The second difference is that there are fewer teams in the women’s edition of the World Cup. Currently, the men’s World Cup has 32 teams. The 2015 women’s World Cup has 24 teams. This actually represents an expansion of the field for the women’s World Cup, which from its first tournament in 1991 has grown from 12 teams to 16 in 1999 and now to 24. It may seem strange to change the number of teams involved in the World Cup but the same evolution has happened in the men’s edition. It went from 16 to 24 teams in 1982 and then to 32 in 1998. The switch from 16 to 24 teams has a major impact on how the tournament works. Until now, with 12 or 16 teams, the tournament has started with a group stage consisting of groups of four teams each. The top eight teams from the group stage advanced to the single elimination knockout round. With sixteen teams, this meant that the top two teams from each group qualified to be in the final eight. This year, the 24 teams are divided up into six groups of four teams each. Instead of trying to winnow the field straight from 24 to eight, the organizers decided to add an additional knockout stage round in — a round with 16 teams.
Now bear with me for another minute, because here’s where the technical mumbo jumbo actually starts meaning something. With 24 teams in six groups of four each, taking the top two teams from each group only gives us 12 teams. We need 16 for the knockout round. So, the top four third place teams will qualify to the single elimination stage of the tournament. This gives an enormous life-line to teams stuck in difficult groups, of which the United States’ group is thought to be the most difficult. The way the third place teams will be compared to each other is the same as the tie-breakers within the group. The first condition is number of points (three for a win, one for a tie, zero for a loss) during the group stage games. The next is cumulative goal differential (goals scored minus goals given up) during the group stage, and the final way is total goals scored. If teams are tied after that, a coin will be flipped. Yep, your country’s fortunes could be decided by a coin flip.
The weirdest thing about adding four third place teams into the round of sixteen is deciding who they play. Usually, all the first place teams are rewarded by playing a different group’s second place team in the first knockout round. Theoretically this gives the first place teams an easier path to the second round. That will still be true for the winners of groups E and F. The first place teams in groups A, B, C, and D will play the third place team from another group as determined by this insane chart.
If I were a fan of a country stuck in group E or F, I would be angry that my team had no chance of picking up a relatively easy matchup against a third place team. I don’t know whether groups E and F are intentionally weaker to reflect this advantage or if it was just the (bad) luck of the draw.
Given the indignation about the turf, I don’t expect another women’s World Cup to ever be played on anything but grass. And in another decade or so, I expect the women’s World Cup will move to 32 teams and be identical to the men’s. That is, unless the men’s World Cup keeps expanding also. Only time will tell.
Thanks for reading,
Ezra Fischer