Women's World Cup

Not a good start for Ecuador, unfortunately. Lost to Cameroon, 4-0.

EDIT: Oops ... worse than I thought 6-0 (I had heard a late score while watching USA-Australia, and thought it was the final).
http://www.foxsports.com/soccer/fifa-wo … ort-060815

BobH wrote:

Not a good start for Ecuador, unfortunately. Lost to Cameroon, 4-0.

EDIT: Oops ... worse than I thought 6-0 (I had heard a late score while watching USA-Australia, and thought it was the final).
http://www.foxsports.com/soccer/fifa-wo … ort-060815

For those in Ecuador, to watch video at that link of Fox Sports, they either need to either have a Proxy DNS activated or a VPN.  At least that was the case for me.

Not much to see, unfortunately.

BobH wrote:

Not much to see, unfortunately.

Saw two amazing goals by the Nigerian women on ESPN Sports Center a few minutes ago in a 3-3 tie.  Hard to watch 60 minutes of that.

Nigeria was pretty impressive. My 'not much to see' referred to an Ecuadorian viewpoint. I imagine most would just as soon forget it.

I hope they accomplish at least a bit. They say they're hoping to raise awareness of the women's game in Ecuador. A little success might go a long way.

OMG ... I just finished watching the Ecuador-Switzerland game. It was a disaster -- Ecuador lost 10-1.

The announcers were discussing the need for Ecuador's football federation to give the women's team some support and treat them with respect. The team has no money, no facilities, no development program for younger players, etc.

Well, it's over. Ecuador lost the last of their three games; but they had a good performance today, losing to Japan, the defending world champs, 1-0.

I have a question for those in-country, especially those who read Spanish-language media: Is any attention being paid to this? The women are trying to build up their sport, and the talent seems to be there, but they can't advance much without some resources being put behind them.

Other South American teams are doing pretty well -- Brazil won their group, and Colombia may win (we'll know tomorrow). Mexico and Costa Rica have also performed well.

Costa Rica has come up with a good way to get around their lack of resources -- they're sending their promising players to play on US college teams.

What sport was this?

Not much media attention. The men's team is playing in Copa America right now and they get all the media. The women players only make around $300/month when training. It's unfortunate.

amyf wrote:

Not much media attention. The men's team is playing in Copa America right now and they get all the media. The women players only make around $300/month when training. It's unfortunate.

Thanks, Amy. That's too bad. The announcers on yesterday's game mentioned that the team seldom plays together as a team, because they mostly have outside jobs.

Countries that have lots of emigrants in the US in some cases recruit girls born to those emigrants, because women's soccer is ahead of much of the world. Mexico does it, I know, and the Philippines, which has a dreadful team, has recently started (Philippines invited my daughter to a tryout, but she declined -- her husband was rather cool to the idea). I don't know if Ecuador has enough emigrants in the US for that to be a big help.

But the Costa Rican approach that I mentioned above could work.

Still, nothing will be a success unless the country's football federation decides to get serious about it.

In the sports-viewing Mecca that is the Plaza Foch area of Quito, futbol -- in this case men's soccer -- was all the rage this evening.

And it wasn't even Ecuador's team playing on pantallas in pubs and restaurants throughout the area.  It was Colombia's yellow-shirted team, which squeaked out a 1-0 win over Brazil (playing in Chile) in the America Cup that Amy mentioned.

Shouting erupted throughout Gringolandia each time Colombia made a big play, and when the game ended I saw a spontaneous celebration -- mainly dozens of yellow-shirted young men jumping up and around and shouting, with arms extended, in the center of the plaza.

I asked a number of local Ecuatorianos why there is so much excitement among the locals when Colombia wins a game.  Apparently, it's a combination of having many Colombian Expats in Quito...the fact that Colombia is a vecino or neighbor of Ecuador...and current good relations between the two countries.

cccmedia in Quito

Meantime in Mariscal, my efforts to survey Quiteños for Bob's Ecuador-women's-team thread showed that the locals seem to have little knowledge of this team.

My masseuse had never heard of such a team playing for Ecuador in the (women's) World Cup.  Same for my moza at La Boca del Lobo restaurant* where I later had dinner.  She said she'd ask around and when she came back she said none of the restaurant staff had heard of this team.

The outlier was my 25-year-old security guard whom I questioned when I got back to my place in Centro Histórico.  He not only knew about the Ecuador women's team, he was able to cite their opponents and the final score in each of the recent three games.

Once the women have some wins under their belt, their team may have a better chance at sponsorship money and garnering some public interest in what is currently a macho world of South American futbol.

cccmedia in Quito


*The Boca del Lobo (Mouth of the Wolf) restaurant is in the heart of Gringolandia, and features an upscale menu that includes a wolf-meat dinner.  I had the berenjena.

Thanks, CCC -- that's about what I expected.

A bit of a Catch-22: They'll get support/funding when they start winning, but they're unlikely to win against teams that have the funding (US, Europe, Japan, etc).

Regarding the support for Colombia, I suppose since there's little interest in women's soccer, it won't carry over to Monday's game between USA and Colombia.

Hey let's hear it for the home team

Bravo Women's USA team  Coup de Monde, Coupe Mondiale

WORLD CHAMPIONS

I think Nards should arrange some kind of party down there in In Cuenca Ex pat Community

It's a big deal, like having the Pope come visit your country 

suefrankdahl wrote:

Hey let's hear it for the home team

Bravo Women's USA team  Coup de Monde, Coupe Mondiale

WORLD CHAMPIONS

I think Nards should arrange some kind of party down there in In Cuenca Ex pat Community

It's a big deal, like having the Pope come visit your country 

I went pretty close to nuts watching the game. USA! USA!

I'm still hoping Ecuador will start giving their women an opportunity to compete.