Match week 24
A week in which the AFC Women's Asian Cup hosts India get disqualified, Tottenham cause more heartache and female footballers in England get maternity cover
The sun is hitting me where I’m sitting in this moment, and I am happy that there’s NO English football this week. There’s an international break in the men’s game right now which is very handy, because I don’t think I can handle any more of the emotional rollercoaster that is the Tottenham football fandom at this point. Aah, but disappointment is never far off with this team - we still have the inevitable drag of a lacklustre transfer window to look forward to.
The women’s Asian Cup 2022 kicked off last week, which is where 12 teams (new for this edition, it used to be eight) from the Asian Football Federation compete for five spots to the World Cup 2023, as well as two places to the inter-confederation play-offs for another shot at grabbing a spot. As co-hosts (together with New Zealand), Australia have already qualified but they’re still taking part, alongside reigning champions Japan, debutantes Iran, China, Chinese Taipei, Vietnam, Indonesia, Myanmar, South Korea, Philippines, Thailand, and India who are the hosts of the tournament.
India are also the focus of much talk, as it emerged that they had a massive outbreak of COVID in their camp. First, it was their match against Chinese Taipei that got canceled, due to the Indian team not being capable of fielding 13 players. Then the news emerged that India were disqualified, as their squad had been hit hard by COVID, with as many as 12 players sick. Samantha really sums it up with this tweet.
The reporting from the AFC contains a lot of references to regulations and articles, but behind all the corporate language is a football team, the hosts of the tournament nonetheless, who were probably quite excited to get to play a tournament, with a chance to qualify for the World Cup in 2023. I don’t want to be that person but … why are we persistently choosing to let tournaments (leagues, competitions) go ahead in the midst of a pandemic? I find it cruel to put these things on, getting teams and individuals hyped for it and with the promise that everything is *fine*, to then have to deal with situations as they (inevitably) spring up and enforce articles that see folks missing out.
I acknowledge the desire to go back to a sense of “normal,” and money both play huge parts, and there’s a lot to say for the impact of sports being back for people’s mental health, but two years into this mess surely we should be able to do something differently (also obviously not singling this specific tourno out, rather the larger picture.) Fun random fact: India have a Swedish coach in Thomas Dennerby.
A beautiful thing during the week was seeing FCB who, after playing (and winning 7-0) against Atletico de Madrid in the Supercopa final, gathered around and celebrated Virginia Torrecilla by throwing her up in the air (Atleti also did.) It was the first time back on the pitch for the midfielder since she started her battle with a brain tumour, and the pictures are beautiful and shows that sometimes it’s about more than football.
From Barcelona to Glasgow and some local news: Cathkin Blazes won a tournament! Julie over at @womensfootballglasgow has been organising a tournament every month, with a lot of success. The tournament is divided into two different levels, intermediate and beginners, allowing for a lot of different teams to take part and come together for an afternoon of football, and this time it was the Blazes turn to win it all in the beginner category. Smiles all around which has warmed my heart this whole week.
In more beautiful news - female football players in England are going to get maternity cover (as well as long-term sickness cover.) This is great news that unfortunately are still all too rare in women’s sports. The details of this cover, which are yet to be unveiled, will apply to the 24 clubs in the WSL and the Championship.
Tottenham’s men’s team has not done so well in the last week however, as they got a thumping from London-rivals Chelsea. After the brilliant display against Leicester at the King Power Stadium, I think a lot of Spurs fans were flying high, but were then briskly brought back down to earth with a 2-0 loss. However, the team was playing well and we would’ve gone 1-0 up at the end of the first half thanks to a brilliant Harry Kane goal, which was unfortunately disallowed due to an alleged foul on Thiago Silva (I’m saying alleged because that decision was really questionable.)
It’s such a curious experience to analyse the behaviour of your football fandom as you’re watching a game, as you’re trying to will these little men on the screen to move the ball in the direction that you want, using up most of your energy on mind games, jumping up and down and screaming useless directions.
Leaving you with the highlights of this exciting game (which reminds me a little bit of Tottenham’s win :) *focus on the positives*) and I have to say, I really feel for Atleti fans haha, this is rather typical for them to pull off, and I don’t know if I could manage my heart up my throat week in and week out like this.