At Women's World Cup, Seeing Signs of Lionel Messi, Not Mia Hamm
As the World Cup in Canada gives women's soccer its time in the spotlight, fans, coaches, the news media and the players themselves are closely watching the stars of the women's game. And then likening them to men.
- Victor Mather, The New York Times
- Updated: June 13, 2015 12:53 PM IST
Megan Rapinoe picked up the ball at the halfway line at the Women's World Cup and sped forward. When she finally encountered a defender, she effortlessly jinked by her and shot the ball into the net to seal a victory for the United States over Australia.
What's the right way to describe such a feat?
"I was doing my best Messi impression," Rapinoe said Monday, referring to the Argentine star Lionel Messi.
As the World Cup in Canada gives women's soccer its time in the spotlight, fans, coaches, the news media and the players themselves are closely watching the stars of the women's game. And then likening them to men.
So anyone watching the matches is likely to hear France's best player referred to as the female Zinedine Zidane and Sweden's as the female Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Marta, the Brazilian star and five-time world player of the year, was once described as "Pele in a skirt" by Pele; himself.
Some of the players do not especially welcome the comparisons. Vivianne Miedema, the 18-year-old star of the Dutch team, is often called the female Arjen Robben, after the wing who led the Netherlands to the World Cup semifinals last summer.
"Yeah, I get that a lot," Miedema told FIFA.com. "But Arjen plays very differently to me. It's really cool to be compared to him, but, as a woman, it's a bit strange to always be compared to a man. I'm Vivianne Miedema, and I don't play like men do."
Lotta Schelin, Sweden's star, is often compared to Ibrahimovic, the dominant player on her country's men's team.
"The comparisons are nice in a way," Schelin said last year. "But although he inspires me, and I love watching him play, there are big differences between us, too. And I like that young girls look up to me as Lotta Schelin, not as the female Zlatan."
Julie Foudy was a star on the 1999 World Cup team that put women's soccer on the sports radar in the United States, and she is now an analyst and commentator for ESPN. She said she wished players in the Cup were more often compared to female stars of the past like Mia Hamm. But she knows that because of the ubiquity of men's soccer, comparisons to men are inevitable.
"I get it, because that's what people see on television," Foudy said. "There's no opportunity to follow the women's game. It's really hard to find it."
Many female players are avid followers of the men's game, Foudy said, and the players themselves are often the sources of the comparisons to men.
"Messi's my role model," Ramona Bachmann of Switzerland told FIFA.com. "He's so exceptional, it's like he's from another planet."
Gaelle Enganamouit, who scored a surprise hat trick in Cameroon's opener, even compares herself to her country's most famous men's player.
"In my view, Samuel Eto'o is the greatest forward in the world," she said. "I've always said that one day I will be the Samuel Eto'o of women's football."
Enganamouit's team is making its women's World Cup debut.
"They are the first generation," Foudy noted. "There is no Michelle Akers or Mia Hamm for them. You hope the next wave behind them will have them as role models."
There is nothing new about comparisons like this. In Brazil, where interest in women's soccer lags far behind that for the men's game, Marta has long been compared not only to Pelé but to other famous men's players; another of her nicknames is the female Ronaldinho. Louisa Necib of France is called the female Zidane, also a French player of Algerian ancestry. Zidane led France's men to the World Cup title in 1998.
And the phenomenon is not unique to women's soccer. Sheryl Swoopes, the three-time WNBA most valuable player, has often been called the female Michael Jordan. But the male-female comparisons do not seem to be so common in individual women's sports; Serena Williams, Lindsey Vonn and the mixed martial arts champion Ronda Rousey are mostly recognized for their own achievements, rather than as female versions of Roger Federer, Bode Miller and Brock Lesnar.
But because many people follow women's soccer only once every four years, when they reach for an analogy it will always be easier to find a comparison in the men's game.
Foudy said she "would not necessarily go to a male player" when making a comparison on the air. On ESPN the other day, she compared the current South Korean player Ji So-yun to the former Chinese women's star Sun Wen.
But Foudy is in the minority. Ji's nickname is Ji Messi.
© 2015 New York Times News Service