To begin today’s talk, I will be discussing Women’s Champions league attendance numbers, Alex Morgan’s recent statements about the United States Women’s National Team (USWNT), and what the most recent results have told us about what the Champions League semi finals will look like.
Let’s start with the Women’s Champions League, who just concluded their semifinals. Wolfsburg will take on FC Barcelona (the favorite) in early June to decide the best in all of Europe. However, the most notable story to come out of these games was the attendance for the Arsenal – Wolfsburg semifinal match hosted by Arsenal. With a crowd of over 60,000 screaming fans, Arsenal unfortunately took the loss, but it was the fact that simply ten years ago in this same semifinal matchup, they had a crowd of only 6,000 people.
This to me just shows the growth of the women’s game, and frankly I’m all for it, as I have been since I watched the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup. I was too young for everything else, yet I still remember Alex Morgan’s header in the 2012 Olympic Semifinal in the 123rd minute to send USA to the Gold medal match.
Speaking of Alex Morgan, in a recent interview she stated that this is the strongest national teams she’s ever been on, which is a bold statement considering Morgan was on the 2015 and 2019 World Cup winning squads. With the WWC just around the corner, it’s good for USA fans that Morgan feels this way. We are coming into this competition ready to win, despite Mallory Swanson’s gruesome injury. To say that her injury hurts us, would be an understatement.
One would think that this injury takes out the USWNT from the equation. Wrong! Not to mention that every other country has had an overload of ACL injuries (which has been its own controversy).
England, the winner of last year’s Euros, has dealt with nothing but injuries the past few months. Now I dare to say that they aren’t the favorites anymore. I guess we will have to see when the time comes which is only *checks clock* 73 days.
Lastly, I want to talk about what we should expect in the Champions league semis this week and next week. For starters, just by going off recent results, if you were to bet on anyone other than Manchester City and Inter Milan then you might be crazy. Both teams have really been peaking the past few weeks with win after win after win after win. Real Madrid and AC Milan have a lot on their plates if they want to get by these teams. It’s been pure dominance from those sides, so Real fans and AC fans better be praying for an upset this week.
The State of Soccer in the World 