Australias Womens (Matildas) loses 7-0 to Newcastle Jets u15 Boys

Matildas lose 7-0 in friendly against Newcastle Jets U15 side | smh.com.au

Is it a matter of athletic ability or that the boys train full time and the women dont? Is this type of result expected? The women are ranked #5 in the world.

I coach u15 and some of my players are over 6ft already. They are practically men.

Canada's women have lost to BCSPL u16 teams.....

Many times.
When my son was U14 they (SU BCPL) played TWU a few times and beat them.
At U16, boy's BCPL teams have played WNT many times and crushed them.
Before the WCup, BCSA invited a few BCPL players (from multiple teams) to train with and play against the WNT (maybe the idea was that would be easier if they were not from the same team?). They got stomped anyways.
About same time I remember US losing to a U15 or U16 team, in Oregon I believe.
Anyhow, the evidence is clear that the physical difference makes it too much of an uphill battle for them.
BTW, in most if not all games that I actually saw, the WNT played "better" soccer but the girls were at a huge disadvantage in terms of strength and speed and over 90 minutes they suffered. If they played short (15-20min) mini games they would probably do OK.

TulioMaravilha said:

Many times.
When my son was U14 they (SU BCPL) played TWU a few times and beat them.
At U16, boy's BCPL teams have played WNT many times and crushed them.
Before the WCup, BCSA invited a few BCPL players (from multiple teams) to train with and play against the WNT (maybe the idea was that would be easier if they were not from the same team?). They got stomped anyways.
About same time I remember US losing to a U15 or U16 team, in Oregon I believe.
Anyhow, the evidence is clear that the physical difference makes it too much of an uphill battle for them.
BTW, in most if not all games that I actually saw, the WNT played "better" soccer but the girls were at a huge disadvantage in terms of strength and speed and over 90 minutes they suffered. If they played short (15-20min) mini games they would probably do OK.

Click to expand...

Yup!

Can you imagine the CanWNT trying to defend/stop Alphonso Davies, for example? Not gonna happen.

Now, but that doesn't mean they don't get something out of it.
Last time my son was there, the WNT was preparing for games against Japan. So, Herdman coached the boys to mimick aspects of them. I remember my son was told to pressure high and fast and take away all time on the ball from CBs.
Later JH called for 20-25 min high tempo scrimmages against the boys where the WNT was supposed to play at a fast pace non stop and bring the game to them, and you know what, they did and came up ahead a few times.
It was only on the last day when they went 90 min that I saw the WNT get destroyed and even then only after the first 20 odd minutes when they could still keep the pace...

I don't think anyone is suggesting people won't learn or gain something. You can learn or gain from anything. The question is who is gaining, and is it beneficial to both sides etc etc etc

When the sports performance of elite men and women soccer players is compared using absolute criteria, the differences are significant. This is one of the conclusions of the study by the Faculty of Physical Activity and Sports Sciences, conducted in collaboration with other universities in Europe. Over a hundred soccer players of both genders were monitored during UEFA Champions League matches to conduct this research. Apart from this conclusion, one of the practical applications of the study in the short term could lead to adapting the physical and technical preparation to the needs of each gender. Another to be applied in the long term could be the possibility of adapting soccer to the physical capacity of women, as in other sports.

"There were no surprises, we expected these results," admitted Julen Castellano, researcher at the Faculty of Physical Activity and Sports Sciences (UPV/EHU-University of the Basque Country) and member of the group that conducted the comparative study of physical and technical performance between genders, men and women, in elite soccer matches. Anthropometric differences and physical qualities are responsible for the difference. The results, obtained after monitoring over 100 men and women players participating in UEFA Champions League matches, could be summed up in two aspects: firstly, the physical one, in which women run a shorter distance overall and at high intensities and, unlike the men, display fatigue during the second half of the match; and, secondly, the technique-tactics aspect, where there were no differences in the number of ball touches, time in possession of the ball and total duels won. Interesting conclusions, but ones that nevertheless raise a new question.

Final reflections

If absolute values are used as the reference criteria when the comparison is made, we may be committing the error of underestimating the effort made by the female gender. If we take as the reference the values relating to men in order to compare both genders, as men are faster and have more stamina, we might be led to believe that women "don't give all they've got," but "we are in no doubt that women do give the maximum; so if this is relativized to the actual values of the population being studied, the results would be different with respect to the physical demands involved in women's soccer," points out Castellano. But right now, it is virtually impossible to conduct studies of this type. One would need to know the maximums and particular speed and stamina thresholds for each woman player, and this is delicate information that teams 'scrupulously' conceal so as not to give their rivals any clues. So, despite the fact that we have this first descriptive approach, more research needs to be done by incorporating new variables, by expanding the sample and by adapting the ranges of intensity of the population studied; while guaranteeing equality, that would enable us to complement the comparison with respect to the demands made on both genders when playing a football match.

In any case, and this is the second reflection, according to Castellano, that could be drawn from the study and it is that female football should not just be "a mirror of high performance masculine football," and should therefore not aspire either to the speed, intensity or distance covered by men. A piece of data that is along this line is that even if both genders are playing the same game, they each do it in their own way.

Video-tracking

To make the comparison, the video-tracking technique was used; it is a system that recognises each player in the video image and monitors him/her, 25 times a second; that way one knows where each player is and, therefore, the variables associated with the x and y coordinates at time t, like locations, distances covered or speeds. Today, this technology is increasingly used in professional teams, in fact the Spanish La Liga has been using a similar system known as TRACAB for the last four years. With another similar system, this type of technology, already in its early stages in the Spanish league, provided hitherto unknown results: the 2002/2003 league champions Real Madrid, managed by Vicente Del Bosque, was the team that ran the shortest distance. Subsequent studies support the thesis that winning teams run less than their rivals. Could it be that the physical side is not the most important aspect in soccer?