Women in American Soccer and European Football: Different Roads to Shared Glory

Different Evolutionary Models — Past, Present, and Future — Certain to Collide at Women’s World Cup 2023With this new edition of his feted 2019 volume, Dr. Andrei Markovits — author of many books and academic papers on world fútbol, published in multiple languages — trains his canny, socio-historical eye on the contrasting cultural forces shaping women’s soccer in 2023.A head start. Where North American women, starting in the 1970s, enjoyed newly rendered systems and cultural spaces left empty by traditionally male-centered team sports, their European sisters were forced to contest what has arguably been the most male-dominated space in European public life.Changing dynamics. These nuanced, divergent evolutions help explain the dominance of the 4-time World Cup champion United States. However, hard-won access to the European player-development apparatus, mainly at the club level, has tipped the balance of power.Crucial support. Markovits also identifies the one cohort vital to the sport’s commercial success, on either side of the Atlantic: women themselves, who have rarely (if ever) supported any team game at the professional level in numbers that would allow women’s soccer to compete equitably with team sports played exclusively and watched largely by men.No book better explains this fascinating state of play or better preps the global soccer community for a World Cup sure to remake the sport’s balance of power. Read more