June 16th and today I'm going back six years to 2015 and a double header of matches at the Women's World Cup at the Commonwealth Stadium, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
I should start by saying that I don't watch much Women's football. That's not because I have anything against it but more because I probably watch more than enough football already. However a World Cup represents the pinnacle of the game and I couldn't resist the chance to take in a couple of games. The women's game has grown massively over the last 30 years and football is now the number one participation sport for women in England with almost 3.5 million registered players as of 2020. At the top end of the game in England we now have the fully professional Women's Super League and English national and club sides compete on the European and World stages. I would strongly recommend avoiding attempts to compare the men's and women's versions of the game as they are not the same but being different shouldn't imply better or worse. It's all a matter of taste you see?
The first FIFA sanctioned Women's World Cup took place as recently as 1991 in China and the tournament has grown in stature ever since. By 2015 the Women's World Cup had reached it's seventh edition and the tournament was held entirely in Canada which is one of the powerhouses of the women's game as indeed is North America as a whole. Soccer (as it is known over there) is regarded equally as a boys and girls participation sport and has been since it started to gain popularity amongst young people following its introduction at school level. Elite level American (or Canadian) Football, baseball and basketball is dominated by men which is not the case with soccer.
Attendances at the 2015 World Cup exceeded 1.3 million for the 52 matches at an average of over 26,000 making it the most popular Women's tournament ever. The games were held in six stadia spread right across Canada and the Group Stage matches were often played as double headers. This enabled us to take in two games for the price of one in Edmonton with the Group C game between Switzerland and Cameroon kicking off at 3PM followed by the Group D game between Australia and Sweden starting at 6PM.
The Commonwealth Stadium was a new venue for me since all of the soccer that I had watched in Edmonton up to that point had taken place at FC Edmonton's Clarke Stadium located in the shadow of the Commonwealth Stadium. The Commonwealth Stadium was built for the 1978 Commonwealth Games and is now the home of the Edmonton Elks Canadian Football team (formerly known as the Edmonton Eskimos but renamed due to increased cultural sensitivity). The Stadium has been used for soccer several times since it was built but is certainly too large for FC Edmonton at their present levels of support so the Women's World Cup gave me the rare opportunity of taking in a football match there.
The official attendance for the double header was 10,177 although I'm sure that at no stage were there 10,000 people in the stadium at the same time. The capacity of the Commonwealth Stadium for the event was 56,302 so the crowd was rather lost in the stands. In the first match, for a while the Swiss looked like they might run away with it as they took a first half lead. However, two second half goals from Cameroon swung the game in their favour and it ended Switzerland 1 Cameroon 2. Both sides advanced to the knockout stage with Cameroon finishing second in their Group to Japan and Switzerland being one of the four best placed third place teams (the format was identical to the current Euro 2020 competition).
The second game was closer still. Australia took a fifth minute lead but the lead was short lived with star of the women's game Eva Sofia Jakobsson getting Sweden's equaliser ten minutes later and that concluded the scoring . Jakobsson has made 122 appearances for Sweden and currently plays her club football for Real Madrid. Again both sides advanced to the knockout stage with Australia finishing second in their Group to the USA and Sweden being another of the four best placed third place teams.
Of the four teams that I saw that day, only Australia made it through the Round of 16 and they fell at the Quarter-final hurdle to Japan who also went on to beat England in the Semi-final before succumbing to the eventual World Cup winners, the USA.
CRB Match No. 2040 & 2041
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