by RoyalBlue »
16 May 2015 12:32
Libertine Has Reading ever had a player play in a World Cup representing England whilst playing for Reading before?
We have a quite strong Women's National Team here in the US so maybe us Yanks take the women's game more seriously. But I think this is quite an honor, and good reflection on the club. Congrats Fran and good luck to England in their quest to finish second to the US...
I think you know that you take the women's game more seriously than in the UK. Look how many colleges (universities in proper English) have womens soccer (football in real English) teams, many with facilities/staffing that lower level professional/semi-professional clubs in the UK would be jealous of, and where many of the players get all of their expenses covered whilst obtaining a degree. On top of that, you have a strong professional women's club setup.
Hope Solo (US Women's Goalkeeper for the less knowledgeable) has 866K followers on twitter! @ReadingFC have 'just' 152K, Joe Hart has 11.4K
No matter how well the women's game develops in the UK, we will struggle to catch up with the US, particularly given the sheer numbers of youngsters that are taking up the girls'/women's game over your side of the pond (and that's despite the very high cost, compared to the UK, of playing kids football (soccer) in the US).
toppy Good opportunity to get a few new people. I might pop along if I get to see Fran...
I doubt you will get to see her play and she may not be there at all I'm afraid, as the England Women's World Cup Squad have already met up for their training camp I believe. Still well worth going to watch the game though as Reading have a good number of other excellent players as well (full internationals and U21 etc.). The game against Everton was excellent and certainly made nonsense of some of the claims about the women's game, including that it is 'soft'.