'Invincible' all-girl football team goes whole season unbeaten - in boys' league

Pexbo

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LInkash said:
Just stumbled upon this article and it came as a massive surprise as you hear about U15 boys teams beating full grown women's teams and the like.

What do we think? Could a women's team ever beat a men's team?

Or is it a case of girls developing faster so this just happened at the perfect moment?

https://news.sky.com/story/invincib...whole-season-unbeaten-in-boys-league-13119242
Click to expand...
u-12 girls will have a similar physical advantage over u-12 boys as u-15 boys have over u-15 girls.
 

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The typical girl is slightly shorter than the typical boy at all ages until adolescence. She becomes taller shortly after age 11 because her adolescent spurt takes place two years earlier than the boy's.

So yes, physicality matters and girls have a 2-3 year time period between 11 - 14 where they have the advantage.

The above is a more plausible explanation but it'd be a nice mix-up if women can become as good as their male counterpart at senior level.

All in all, it just seems like a deliberately obtuse/misleading piece of propaganda (by omission).
 

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My niece bossed matches in midfield at a similar age when playing in a boys league. The WSL 2 side she left a couple of seasons back, decided to enter their U16 Girls into a Boys U14 league this season and they've been battered every week.

I can only speak regarding my niece, but she picked up a lot of the technical skills much quicker. But now she would struggle massively playing against boys 2-3 years younger.
 

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Pronewbie said:
The typical girl is slightly shorter than the typical boy at all ages until adolescence. She becomes taller shortly after age 11 because her adolescent spurt takes place two years earlier than the boy's.

So yes, physicality matters and girls have a 2-3 year time period between 11 - 14 where they have the advantage.

The above is a more plausible explanation but it'd be a nice mix-up if women can become as good as their male counterpart at senior level.

All in all, it just seems like a deliberately obtuse/misleading piece of propaganda (by omission).
Click to expand...
Did you actually read the article?
What propoganda?
 

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It's an age where the athletic difference is still not that big, so it will depend a lot on the level of the league. Then puberty hits.
 

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There will be a physical athletic difference, but skill wise there are no rational reasons why women can‘t be as skilled as men.
 

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it was the lowest division of the u12s and i bet they bossed the girls league previously. the girls are clearly a good team. the boys teams would be very basic at div 3 and any decent team would power through that division. The girls team would be more advanced in their game but stick them in the division 1 against boys teams that take it more seriously and more developed and you will see a different outcome. doesnt take anything away from their achievements though.
 

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LInkash said:
Just stumbled upon this article and it came as a massive surprise as you hear about U15 boys teams beating full grown women's teams and the like.

What do we think? Could a women's team ever beat a men's team?

Or is it a case of girls developing faster so this just happened at the perfect moment?

https://news.sky.com/story/invincib...whole-season-unbeaten-in-boys-league-13119242
Click to expand...
At that junior level (U12, local league, amateur club) it's not that surprising. They are playing their peer group really in terms of training setup and physical ability. A lot of the current generation of women players played for boys' teams until they were in their early/mid teens.

Most of the top girls youth teams will play against boys until they physically can't compete. Often that's because there will be more boys teams available locally who are good enough to give them a good game that forces them to think and work faster/harder than they would against another girls team.

By the time they hit puberty they'll hit a point where they physically can't compete and in most clubs/FAs they'll be banned from trying. Senior clubs and pro-clubs often play against their mens academy U16s etc to do the same kind of sharpening up reaction times stuff.
 

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My son's team was soundly beaten when they were U-12 by one of the top girl's team in the country which is not far far away from where we live. Extremely disciplined, tactically astute and technically gifted. Now they are U-14's and played them again and beat them 9-0. The difference in speed and physicality is astonishing and some of those lads have only just started their growth spurt. It's astonishing what puberty does to muscle growth in boys.
 

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Incidentally, just a random thing from a summer training camp/scouting thing I attended (as a de facto chaperone!) One of the girls I was there with had an ambiguous name, short hair and a lot of people just assumed she was a lad.

I was talking to a coach who it turned out was also a PL Academy scout. He asked me about her, wondering if "he" would be upset, "if we moved him out of the U14 down into the U13 - I'd like to see him up against lads his own size."

When I explained that I thought she would be fine with it, he immediately said, "ah, she, that's alright then - it's just sometimes lads think they've screwed up if you suggest it." :smirk:

And yes, she got invited for a trial at their Girls Academy.
 

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My friends daughter is at a top tier academy, at the age she is they don't yet train weekly but usually during school breaks and she still plays grassroots football to, the academy she plays for advised her to get a place in a mixed team as it will be better for her development before she goes FT into the academy next year.

Anyways on the original post I don't see how women can ever make up the physical difference with men post puberty, but fair play to the girls on that team going unbeaten in a league is not an easy thing to do whatever level you play at.
 

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NLunited said:
There will be a physical athletic difference, but skill wise there are no rational reasons why women can‘t be as skilled as men.
Click to expand...
Is that correct? As far as I know, men have biological advantages when it comes to estimating distances and the calculating speed/trajectory etc. so I guess that helps when it comes to first touch, passing, spatial awareness, timing etc. On the other hand, women have better peripheral view which should help with vision, multitasking and spatial awareness as well.

On a sidenote, is there a sport in which men and women can compete completely equally, as in the top athletes of both sexes could as well just play against each other? I once heard that Tennis should be pretty balanced?
 

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Gavinb33 said:
My friends daughter is at a top tier academy, at the age she is they don't yet train weekly but usually during school breaks and she still plays grassroots football to, the academy she plays for advised her to get a place in a mixed team as it will be better for her development before she goes FT into the academy next year.

Anyways on the original post I don't see how women can ever make up the physical difference with men post puberty, but fair play to the girls on that team going unbeaten in a league is not an easy thing to do whatever level you play at.
Click to expand...
Just on the better development if training in a mixed team thing, thats not really good advice unless you are in a place with low numbers. Development is multi faceted and we know with real certainty that girls do better and improve faster when playing and training with other girls. The quality of coaching available has a major impact but also the environment matters a lot too.
 

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Zehner said:
Is that correct? As far as I know, men have biological advantages when it comes to estimating distances and the calculating speed/trajectory etc. so I guess that helps when it comes to first touch, passing, spatial awareness, timing etc. On the other hand, women have better peripheral view which should help with vision, multitasking and spatial awareness as well.

On a sidenote, is there a sport in which men and women can compete completely equally, as in the top athletes of both sexes could as well just play against each other? I once heard that Tennis should be pretty balanced?
Click to expand...
As a teenager I was on the coaching staff of a third and fourth division VolleyBall team and my experience was that the gap wasn't that big between the men and women team. Men are definitely stronger, so serves can be a problem with powerful and particularly accurate men but otherwise women were largely fine.

Tennis and Badminton are not balanced at all.
 

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Zehner said:
Is that correct? As far as I know, men have biological advantages when it comes to estimating distances and the calculating speed/trajectory etc. so I guess that helps when it comes to first touch, passing, spatial awareness, timing etc. On the other hand, women have better peripheral view which should help with vision, multitasking and spatial awareness as well.

On a sidenote, is there a sport in which men and women can compete completely equally, as in the top athletes of both sexes could as well just play against each other? I once heard that Tennis should be pretty balanced?
Click to expand...
There is an interview from a few years ago where Serena Williams spoke about playing Andy Murray
https://www.essentiallysports.com/t...rena-williams-on-playing-against-andy-murray/
 

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Had a couple of girls on my son's U14 squad, that was their last year. After two years of keeping up with, and in many cases being better than, the boys, they started sliding back. The better of the two girls actually complained about the all-female games being far more physical, the boys tended towards speed and passing, but she was no longer able to keep up. Biology is a funny thing.
 

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JPRouve said:
As a teenager I was on the coaching staff of a third and fourth division VolleyBall team and my experience was that the gap wasn't that big between the men and women team. Men are definitely stronger, so serves can be a problem with powerful and particularly accurate men but otherwise women were largely fine.

Tennis and Badminton are not balanced at all.
Click to expand...
Now that you said it, I heard that about volleyball as well. Was pretty surprised because I would have imagined size plays an important role vor serving, blocking and smashing.


Stack said:
There is an interview from a few years ago where Serena Williams spoke about playing Andy Murray
https://www.essentiallysports.com/t...rena-williams-on-playing-against-andy-murray/
Click to expand...
Alright, that doesn't leave much room for interpretation. Crazy to think that even a prodigious talent like Serena Williams can't see herself winning even a single game against Murray.
 

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Zehner said:
Crazy to think that even a prodigious talent like Serena Williams can't see herself winning even a single game against Murray.
Click to expand...
It's not that crazy. If a top 10 male tennis player serves and hits 20% harder than the hardest hitting female tennis player, then it doesn't matter if your form, technique and reflexes are on par with your opponent. Not only will you not have any training against such a difference in speed and force, but each of your hits are gonna be very simple for him to deal with.
 

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Here's another example from Tennis showing thr gulf between the sexes.

"At the height of the Williams boom in 1998, an unofficial game took place in Australia after Serena and Venus claimed that no male player outside the top 200 could beat them.

Up stepped a German known as Karsten Braasch who was ranked 203rd in the world and after first beating Serena 6-1, he then disposed of Venus 6-2.

"I didn't know it would be that difficult. I played shots that would have been winners on the women's circuit and he got to them very easily," said Serena.

"They wouldn't have had a chance against anyone inside the top 500 because today I played like someone ranked 600th to keep it fun," was Braasch's assessment."
 

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LInkash said:
Here's another example from Tennis showing thr gulf between the sexes.

"At the height of the Williams boom in 1998, an unofficial game took place in Australia after Serena and Venus claimed that no male player outside the top 200 could beat them.

Up stepped a German known as Karsten Braasch who was ranked 203rd in the world and after first beating Serena 6-1, he then disposed of Venus 6-2.

"I didn't know it would be that difficult. I played shots that would have been winners on the women's circuit and he got to them very easily," said Serena.

"They wouldn't have had a chance against anyone inside the top 500 because today I played like someone ranked 600th to keep it fun," was Braasch's assessment."
Click to expand...
A large amount of random men think that they could defeat Serena Williams in a tennis match. Does that mean that I could defeat a woman in sports just because I’m a man, even though I’m overweight and not that fit? I doubt it.
 

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thisisnottaken1 said:
A large amount of random men think that they could defeat Serena Williams in a tennis match. Does that mean that I could defeat a woman in sports just because I’m a man, even though I’m overweight and not that fit? I doubt it.
Click to expand...
Considering Braasch's statement you probably should be in the top 1000 tennis players in the world or something like that to beat a top female tennis player.
 

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My son's club has a girls team that regularly beats the boys team. Under 13's I think. They're tactically a lot more disciplined than the boys currently
 

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Zehner said:
On a sidenote, is there a sport in which men and women can compete completely equally, as in the top athletes of both sexes could as well just play against each other? I once heard that Tennis should be pretty balanced?
Click to expand...
As soon as you move away from equestrian sports you'd be struggling to find an equal competition. Perhaps one the target shooting events?

Endurance running is a maybe - the gap between men's and women's times gets narrower as the distance goes up - so it starts to look like a fair competition at maybe 100km+ There is still a gap though.

Football? Not really. Women's football can be a good watch in its own right and it will keep improving in quality terms as more girls play and get the coaching/encouragement/experience needed. That won't make them a match for a men's team though, physicality matters too much.
 
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LInkash said:
Here's another example from Tennis showing thr gulf between the sexes.

"At the height of the Williams boom in 1998, an unofficial game took place in Australia after Serena and Venus claimed that no male player outside the top 200 could beat them.

Up stepped a German known as Karsten Braasch who was ranked 203rd in the world and after first beating Serena 6-1, he then disposed of Venus 6-2.

"I didn't know it would be that difficult. I played shots that would have been winners on the women's circuit and he got to them very easily," said Serena.

"They wouldn't have had a chance against anyone inside the top 500 because today I played like someone ranked 600th to keep it fun," was Braasch's assessment."
Click to expand...
While there obviously is a big difference, that one's a bit extreme as the girls were basically kids at the time. From memory Serena was a 16yo making her Open debut, and Venus was only 17. They were nowhere near the players that they would become (especially Serena).
 

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Zehner said:
Is that correct? As far as I know, men have biological advantages when it comes to estimating distances and the calculating speed/trajectory etc. so I guess that helps when it comes to first touch, passing, spatial awareness, timing etc. On the other hand, women have better peripheral view which should help with vision, multitasking and spatial awareness as well.

On a sidenote, is there a sport in which men and women can compete completely equally, as in the top athletes of both sexes could as well just play against each other? I once heard that Tennis should be pretty balanced?
Click to expand...
Ultra distance running is a sport where men and women compete on a fairly equal footing. I think a woman holds the world record at some distances. I guess the physical advantages that men have over women ie increased size and strength, are not really advantages when it comes to running 50 miles or more.
 

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jojojo said:
As soon as you move away from equestrian sports you'd be struggling to find an equal competition. Perhaps one the target shooting events?
Click to expand...
Women seem to do well in shooting world record comparison. I'm assuming everything is the same, don't know anything about it.
https://www.issf-sports.org/competitions/records/world_records.ashx

If I had to guess, I'd imagine more men participate in shooting so women could well be better overall if they were competing in equal numbers?

Women seem equal in equestrian sports too, but they're unequal sports from other aspects of course. Showjumpers, 3-day eventers and dressage they use their own horse and it costs more to get a better one. It can be about how deep your pockets are to a large extent. For the horsey element of Modern Pentathlon I think they get given a random horse out of pool of horses to use. I'm sure they did at one point at least if not now, but those events are split into men and women's categories anyway.

Horse racing, obviously a lot depends on the horse you're riding too. Still, you have to earn your place on a good horse in a race and more and more women are doing that now.
 

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Zehner said:
Is that correct? As far as I know, men have biological advantages when it comes to estimating distances and the calculating speed/trajectory etc. so I guess that helps when it comes to first touch, passing, spatial awareness, timing etc. On the other hand, women have better peripheral view which should help with vision, multitasking and spatial awareness as well.

On a sidenote, is there a sport in which men and women can compete completely equally, as in the top athletes of both sexes could as well just play against each other? I once heard that Tennis should be pretty balanced?
Click to expand...
Any sport where raw athletic power doesn‘t matter can have a level playing field between men and women.

Growing up with athletically talented sisters, I‘ve come to the conclusion that skill has nothing to do with gender.

There may be some other differences that favour one or the other sex, but I don‘t know anything about that.
 

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Stack said:
Just on the better development if training in a mixed team thing, thats not really good advice unless you are in a place with low numbers. Development is multi faceted and we know with real certainty that girls do better and improve faster when playing and training with other girls. The quality of coaching available has a major impact but also the environment matters a lot too.
Click to expand...
How do we know this out of interest?

I was under the impression that the most talented girls usually end up playing mixed football because the level is usually higher, especially at younger age groups.
 

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Rood said:
How do we know this out of interest?

I was under the impression that the most talented girls usually end up playing mixed football because the level is usually higher, especially at younger age groups.
Click to expand...
I saw it years ago, if I remember correctly it had to do with the level of social comfort. IIRC the same is true for particularly young athletes, it's best to keep them with their age group and maybe add sessions with older groups than just take them away from their peers.

@Stack?
 

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Chipper said:
Women seem to do well in shooting world record comparison. I'm assuming everything is the same, don't know anything about it.
https://www.issf-sports.org/competitions/records/world_records.ashx

If I had to guess, I'd imagine more men participate in shooting so women could well be better overall if they were competing in equal numbers?

Women seem equal in equestrian sports too, but they're unequal sports from other aspects of course. Showjumpers, 3-day eventers and dressage they use their own horse and it costs more to get a better one. It can be about how deep your pockets are to a large extent. For the horsey element of Modern Pentathlon I think they get given a random horse out of pool of horses to use. I'm sure they did at one point at least if not now, but those events are split into men and women's categories anyway.

Horse racing, obviously a lot depends on the horse you're riding too. Still, you have to earn your place on a good horse in a race and more and more women are doing that now.
Click to expand...
Being light is an advantage on horseback (all other things being equal) so this is probably a fairly level playing field.
 

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Rood said:
How do we know this out of interest?

I was under the impression that the most talented girls usually end up playing mixed football because the level is usually higher, especially at younger age groups.
Click to expand...
It used to be that way because of numbers playing and also availability of quality coaching for girls. 20 years ago I had a 7 year old girl in a boys team I coached, she stayed in the team till she was 14 and ended up playing for NZ at an u17 WC. Back then there just werent the girls teams that were good enough. I coached her both in this boys club team but she also ended up in a regional representative academy coaching system here. That group was an all girls group and the difference in how she interacted with her team mates was significantly different. She was so much happier and engaged in the girls rep team. She was pretty quiet and shy among the boys. Thats anecdotal i know but there has been work done looking into this and it does show in general that girls work better in training and games in an all girl setup. Of course even today you will find situations where an individual will benefit from a mixed training.
The growth of the girls and womens game has meant the numbers have really taken off and with it the numbers of quality coaches that coach girls has risen. Today because of the numbers and coaching quality you will often see 9 year old girls teams playing at the same level as a 9 year old boys team in terms of technical and skill quality. Once puberty kicks in the boys physical difference changes everything.
 

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JPRouve said:
I saw it years ago, if I remember correctly it had to do with the level of social comfort. IIRC the same is true for particularly young athletes, it's best to keep them with their age group and maybe add sessions with older groups than just take them away from their peers.

@Stack?
Click to expand...
Yes social comfort has a big impact. Making sure sport is fun and challenging for young athletes helps a great deal in keeping them in their chosen sport. Ive seen it so much over the years.
 
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