2023 WWC - The End of the Group Phase

 Greetings, gentle readers.

So what we find is this:  the group phase has crashed to its final conclusion and Germany, Italy, Argentina, Brazil, Portugal, Canada, and Italy have all been sent home.  Some rejoice at this development.  As one commentator remarked during the Germany v. South Korea match, "people love underdogs."  Certainly the Koreans do, particularly when barbecued and slathered in gochujang sauce.  In an echo of one of my earlier articles, people are joyfully proclaiming an increase in global parity and equality of sporting quality across the globe.  I draw a different conclusion.

Call the Governor

Sports change over time.  This is self-evidently true, given the constant tweaking and changing of the rules.  The National Hockey League has changed the number of games in the season, removed the two-line offside rule, and fiddled with the enforcement of offsetting, cranial injury, stick-related, and instigator penalties.  In women's football, the rules around Video Assisted Review, concussion protocols, substitutions, and injury time added-on to each half of football played, in addition to other minor tweaks and changes in enforcement emphasis.

Retired NHL player Sean Avery has a goaltender
interference rule named after him.

But it's not just the rules that change as time goes by.  Athletes are starting to get tracked or streamed into their particular sport or endeavour at earlier ages, and begin dietary and physical conditioning contemporaneously.  As more and more girls become involved in sports at a grassroots level, the overall population of girls that populate the overall talent pool increases, creating larger quantities of elite-level professionals at the adult end of the athletic career path. The practical upshot is that players in the international level are bigger, stronger, faster, and with greater stamina than they were twenty or even ten years ago.

The practical upshot is that the responsibility for analyzing the development of the game and translating the patterns or growth and development into strategic and tactical decisions falls solidly on the management and coaching teams.  The success and failure of teams at this year's Women's World Cup can be directly linked to decisions made by the managers of each team.  I'm going to try and trace some of the vectors through which managers influence the performance of their teams for as long as my dysfunctional limbs will allow.

The Squad Mod

An international team manager's first responsibility is to form a squad.  The starting team is one goalkeeper and ten "outfield" players, but the training squad is usually around three dozen players from whom the team is selected.  During as long a time as possible, considering professional league schedules and global travel considerations, that group is trained, drilled, taught, and evaluated before being trimmed down to a tournament squad size.  In the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup, each country is allowed to bring a squad consisting of 23 players.  So the manager needs to gather as many of his/her country's best players as possible, assess their ability to play with one another and within a tactical system, select the final squad, and then accept the responsibility for the performance of that final selection.

(Wo-)Man Management

Throughout the entire training and preparation process, a manager is expected to inculcate a philosophy to the players that should not only encompass the players, but the nation they represent.  If Brazilian players aren't allowed to play with fluidity and freedom, they will face scorn from the culture that expects to see itself (and its values) reflected in their style of play.  Dutch, and to a similar but lesser extent, German players are expected to fulfill any role on the field.  Teams that have not yet earned a reputation are expected to "park the bus," which is to say that their team is primarily focused on preventing opposition forays into forward areas to the neglect of any forward progress.

In addition to designing an on-field philosophy that jives with the country to whom the team belongs, managers and their coaching staff are responsible for ensuring that every member of the team, regardless of gender, age, height, width, or whatever are 

<to be continued in the next commentary of the Women's World Cup, 2023.>