By Vaibhav Raghunandan
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The year was 1991. The inaugural Women’s football World Cup was being held in China. Three Asian nations participated in the tournament – the hosts, Chinese Taipei and Japan – but only two made it to the knockout rounds. And no, Japan wasn’t one of them. Stuck in a group with Brazil, Sweden and the US, Japan failed to score a single goal in the tournament. Fast forward 20 years and they were the World Champions.
Four years on, in 2015, Japan are in the finals of the World Cup again, facing the powerhouse of the women’s game – the United States, just like last time. For any country associated with the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), this is a moment to be proud of. And as this year’s World Cup shows, Japan’s victory in 2011 was not a flash in the pan.
If you think 20 years is long enough to become World Champions from nobodies, think about Spain – perennial under-achievers who took more than half a century to notch up a World Cup win.
And England. Poor Laura Bassett. It really did start with the best of intentions.
Their match against Japan on June 30 was their first semi-final ever – and the first for any England side since Italia ’90. It could’ve been a fairytale, a love story, a great romance.
But disaster always begins with the best of intentions. No secondary character in a high school horror movie ever goes, “You know, the drinking and sex will be nice, but what I’m really hoping to get out of this lake vacation is dismemberment.” To avoid disaster, plan for it. And do not, under any circumstances, walk in the woods.
As Japan broke on the counter, Nahomi Kawusumi subtly curled in a cross into the England box. A perfectly curled cross in the box always causes confusion, and attempting to clear the ball, Bassett, despite her best intentions, only succeeded in brilliantly chipping it over her goalkeeper’s head and into their own net.
(An aside: the Lionesses were promised £35,000 – around Rs 35 lakh – each if they won the World Cup. To put this in perspective, this is less than what Liverpudlian winger Raheem Sterling earns per week. England men’s captain Steven Gerrard’s overrated Lions were set to earn ten times that if they got anywhere near the trophy in Brazil in 2014. They got knocked out in the group stages. Not the women, who qualified from a tough group and held their own for long in the tournament.)
Anyway, at the end of the semi-finals, Japan were through. Unconvincingly, sure, but headed to the finals for a rematch against the US.
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There is a quiet resurgence taking hold in Asian football. At the women’s World Cup, this is most apparent. For years, Asian women have outdone their male counterparts – one winner (Japan in 2011), one runner-up (China in 1999) in six editions – and the consistency is admirable. This year, of the five nations present for the group stage in Canada, four qualified for the knockouts – South Korea, China, Japan and Australia, and the last three made it to the quarterfinals. Only Thailand, the World Cup debutants who scored their first goal and registered a first ever-win, didn’t make it past the group stage.
In November last year, the AFC announced a USD $200,000 funding boost for each of its five member nations that qualified for the World Cup. It may have seemed a pittance, compared to what the men’s teams receive before major tournaments, but it was god sent. It may not have leveled the playing field, but it definitely reduced the slope.
Consider this: Ivory Coast went to the World Cup having never played a team outside of their own continent. Clémentine Touré’s team arrived in Canada 72 hours before the biggest game of their lives. They played Thailand, in a closely fought 3-2 loss. Afterwards, Touré was inconsolable. “I want to make an appeal to not only our federation but to all of Africa. We believe in our women. We have a good team. Today the Ivory Coast showed it deserves a place in the World Cup. But we also deserved to be better prepared. We didn’t deserve to be humiliated,” said Touré, who is one of only eight female coaches at the World Cup, which has 24 teams. At least Thailand did not have to deal with administrative incompetence and a general lack of money.
The South American Football Confederation (CONMEBOL) and the Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF) aren’t beyond reproach either. No South American nation made it to the quarters. CONCACAF’s incompetence and favouritism was highlighted by Trinidad & Tobago’s financial struggles in the World Cup qualifiers. The team landed in Dallas without enough money to pay for a cab ride. Volunteer coach Randy Waldrum, also coach of the US National Women’s Soccer League team Houston Dash, sent out an urgent plea for help via Twitter. Money came pouring in.
A huge amount of credit for this must also go to … whisper this bit quietly and at your own peril … FIFA. Or MAFIFA (FIFA + mafia), depending on where you’re standing.
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Disaster (this time, the FIFA corruption blowout) always starts with the best of intentions. FIFA loves money. FIFA loves Asia. It may come as no surprise to some that the continent’s booming market has been at the top of FIFA’s agenda over the last decade. For all of FIFA president Sepp Blatter’s sins (cue sexist remarks on the women’s game, his self-styled ‘godfather of women’s football’ rant or the lack of female executive members in FIFA), his contribution to the growth of Asian football is beyond reproach.
In 2006, Blatter started the process of a fixed share of the profits from each World Cup, for each member. At an All-India Football Federation (AIFF) business planning meeting held last year (I was among the journalists who were invited to it), I learned that in 2014, that figure came up to USD $7,50,000 (Rs 4.8 crore). This is in addition to an annual grant of $2,50,000 (Rs 1.6 crore). For participating in the World Cup qualifiers this year, India will receive an additional $3,00,000 (Rs 1.9 crore). A minimum of 15 percent of this budget is to be directed towards women’s football. Most AFC countries, statistics suggest, spend about 22 percent on the growth of the women’s game.
No surprise then, at the AFC’s 2014 Congress in São Paulo, the confederation had made it clear that it would be voting for Blatter, if and when he stood for re-election. The only nation to vote against the confederation was Australia. This is unsurprising. During the 2015 Asian Cup, which was held in Australia and won by the host nation, the president of the confederation confirmed a move to potentially kick the Aussies out of Asia. Shaikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa, the Bahraini royal who heads the confederation, was quoted as saying, “Yes, it is true there are indications that there is a desire among West Asian federations to kick Australia out. But I also know that the Arabs are not the only ones who are not convinced of the usefulness of the continuation of Australia in Asia.” He went on to refer to the presence of Australia in the AFC as an “experiment”.
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Australia has, without any doubt (sorry England), been the story of this World Cup. Odong lists three reasons for their ascension, primary among them the move to the AFC. Quitting Oceania (which covers 11 nations, the biggest of which is New Zealand) in 2006 meant Australia would a) compete in a confederation with more seats for the World Cup and b) consistently face world class opposition in Japan, Korea and China.
This Australian team is unbelievably young (16 members of their 23-player squad are below 25). There is a move underway to tie a lot of the players down to professional contracts, something that will ensure they climb further up the rankings ladder. Their quarterfinal against Japan this year was one of the defining moments of the AFC’s quality in the women’s game.
Despite all the success, only two AFC nations will be represented at the Olympics in Rio 2016. In his post-quarterfinal presser, Matildas coach Alen Stajcic insisted FIFA rethink the plan. “I don’t see what UEFA have done to earn three spots for Rio. I think Asia is the strongest continent in the world. I really think we should just have much representation if not more than Europe at the Olympic Games,” he said.
For now though, the AFC, if not the whole of Asia, should hope Japan defend their title successfully in the final. A title defense is never an easy proposition, especially when it is against a US team that has constantly defied odds and looks rather strong on paper.
In sport, as in life, winning changes your character, without changing your character. A flamboyant player scores a long ranger that a selfish ball-hog misses. A competitive leader is a bully and an inspiration. Some of it is sports and the rest is human nature: success is a vindication of inner qualities. Japan’s 2011 victory was for an earthquake and tsunami ravaged nation rebuilding itself. 2015’s victory would be for a continent striving to be considered equals in the FIFA world.
Vaibhav Raghunandan is a writer and photographer at Sports Illustrated India.