Soccer

All in the Game: Europe trumping the USA in women’s football

European-based players dominate Guardian list; Grace Moloney keeps Chelsea at bay

Katie McCabe was Ireland’s sole representative in the Guardian’s Top 100 list at number 60. Photograph: Alex Pantling/Getty

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Mary Hannigan
Mon Dec 13 2021 - 10:00

European dominance grows

The Guardian’s annual ‘100 best female footballers in the world’ list is always one heck of an undertaking, 83 judges - 83! - hired to take on the 2021 task. In the end, their top three was Barcelona midfielder and Ballon d’Or winner Alexia Putellas, Arsenal’s Vivianne Miedema and Chelsea’s Sam Kerr.

Alas, there was only one Irish player in the top 100, Katie McCabe a new entry at 60. That there was no place for Denise O’Sullivan should lead to a tribunal of inquiry.

But just 20 of the top 100 play their football in the United States, the list leaning heavily towards European-based players who took the top 17 places. This left one commenter, ‘cnoyes98’, spittin’.

“Congratulations Europe! We are sure that your noble players, armed with this list, will finally get it over the line and win something …. the List will conquer those awful Americans with their arrogant habit of basing sporting confidence on actually winning tournaments!”

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Was s/he done? No. “The assumption of European superiority is an axiom, a postulate, an ideology. It is immune to empirical evidence because it has nothing to do with facts in the first place. It was assumed in the face of a mountain of contrary evidence.”

Cripes, it was only a list.

Quote of the week

"He now plays football as if he has fifty kilos of potatoes on his back." Former Dutch international Ron Vlaar on Frenkie de Jong who, he reckons, is feeling a bit weighed down at Barcelona this weather.

Number of the week

59 - That's how many successive league games Chelsea's women had scored in before they met Reading's Irish goalkeeper Grace Moloney on Saturday. Some clean sheet, that.

Word of mouth

"I have to be honest - I don't even know what the competition is. But I'm sure I'll find out soon enough." - Leicester manager Brendan Rodgers tingling in anticipation of playing in the Europa Conference League after failing to progress in the Europa League.

"Depay is currently stronger on Instagram than on the field."- Former German international Sandro Wagner somewhat questioning the impact of Memphis at Barcelona since he arrived in June.

"He is a player who actually annoys you all the time. He is lucky that he is very fast, otherwise he would have just been a mediocre footballer." - Rafael van der Vaart's campaign against Chelsea's Timo Werner shows zero sign of abating.

No pressure, Tyler Morton

Tyler Morton made quite an impression for Liverpool when he played in last week’s Champions League win away to AC Milan, the 19-year-old academy graduate starting just his second game for the club.

Understandably, Jurgen Klopp was trying to keep a lid on the hype about the young fella after the game. “I don’t want to make his life more complicated than it is already with playing at such a young age in a game like this, so I think we should all calm down,” he said.

But? “But it was really good tonight. The football knowledge, the football brain he showed was absolutely exceptional. If you are technically on that level - and he is, obviously - and you have then such good orientation then sometimes you have enough time for doing good stuff. On top of that, he defended incredibly well.”

No pressure, Tyler.

More word of mouth

"I find myself in an enraged state when I have to listen to the self-serving drivel that he comes out with when he's talking about stuff he really doesn't understand." - Is former Crystal Palace owner Simon Jordan a Gary Neville fan? Um..…

"He's trying to thread a needle through a haystack there." - Glenn Murray metaphor-mangling on BBC Five Live.

"If a player does not want to play for a club like Manchester United medium or long term, I don't think anyone in the club should try to convince him to stay." - Ralf Rangnick stopping just short of saying 'adieu' to Paul Pogba.

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