After reading more or less all the posts so far, I think I agree that adding a women’s league option would do no harm. With the use of variables, it shouldn’t be too hard to achieve.
Though @idonotlikeusernames co-ed idea probably isn’t for the best. Due to physical bodies and such.
@jagatk
There are actually many athletes around the world who do activist-like things, but are still much more well known for what they do in their sport. So, you can touch (or graze) on these subjects without making the story reliant on them.
One more thing. 31 year old MC? Seems a little old (for such an athlete), even for an above average one. It’s about this age that most people start their decline.
Mass entertainment sports, like Soccer currently is, and politics have always been interwoven at least since Roman times and probably before that even.
I disagree, it is entirely possible to do both, however going into a “full-realism” mode any gay star players will most likely have a deeply unsatisfying personal life. Like I mentioned the price for our mc’s “career” would probably come at the cost of being forced to act “straight” and be “matched” with a footballers “wife” who does nothing but make tabloid headlines and spend our mc’s money faster than we can make it.
Or again since the author is already changing the world with the Canada thing he can try to make it a bit more fair, equal and inclusive from the get go and avoid many of the nasty real-life issues currently surrounding the sport.
Except if you are determined to cleave really close to real-life FiFa and the wealthy Russian and Arab oligarchs who own many of the clubs won’t allow any sort of gay activism from their star players, likely forcing our mc into something resembling the situation I mentioned above. Which would mean having either the choice of having some sort of career as a soccer player, though all the money we do make will likely go up in smoke in a messy divorce after we officially “come out” after retirement. Or be true to who we are and forget about having any sort of career in the sport, such as it is.
@UmbraLamia i don’t disagree with that but it would atleast to me seems a bit half-baked, as say author wants to comment on lack of gay players in football then making an issue of it in some small part and then completely ignoring it for rest of the game which he will have to do as the focus will have to be on mc and his career then it kind of becomes an eyesore as there is no viable plot development that can happen on that topic without delving deep into the same, which will then shift focus off the main game. I am not saying don’t comment on the situation but if author wants to go beyond comment and add it to the plot then just glancing over it seems incorrect to me.
On mc being 31 year old, I think what the author is going for is a story bit like that mark wahlberg movie.
It’s still perfidious Albion though, right @ParrotWatcher?
On that topic I wish I had written down the lyrics one of my more artistic and drunken, at the time, friends conjured up in a rendition of Brexitland set to the tune of Dixie. "Away, away, away down south with Europe!"
Still perfidious. Still part of Europe. Still part of the EU. (Could even remain so, depending on whether the Prime Minister legally has the power to submit Article 50 without the consent of Parliament, or if that’s an overreach of power, although this probably isn’t the best place to discuss it.) Either way, though, we’ll still be part of Europe until continental drift drags us away (or the extinction of the human race renders the argument moot).
I’m not really a football fan, though, so I’ll have to just wish @Orange luck with the story and be off back to my own WIP.
So we’re dealing with an alternate reality where soccer isn’t the third most popular ball based sport in Canada? I mean yea we have the two MLS teams now and some second tier teams elsewhere but the local team here struggles to draw three thousand people in attendance.
I disagree that there is a high skill level difference. Soccer players of both genders can have equal technical skill, and some female soccer players have more technical skill than the males.
The only thing males have a lead on is their physical attributes. Men are taller, and their gait may allow them to run faster, win possession in headers, and for goalkeepers, make it easier to catch balls.
But Lionel Messi is 5’6, which tends to be the average height for women. Men don’t have better technical skill than women inherently, that is something that can be improved regardless of gender. Men don’t immediately have an edge in that.
I do not consider it boring. I think that is a matter of personal preference…
I’m interested. You seem to already have a premise that you’re close to retirement, but you’re still dedicated to the sport. I would like to start out in a new club of your choosing, at the new age of 19, and work your way up to the greats, but I think that’s a little difficult.
The close to retirement thing adds a lot of pressure to the game though, even with state of the art medical care, diets and fitness regime’s we may have 5-6 years tops of real star performance left in our mc’s at that point.
If the real-world politics are going to figure into it then that calculus is potentially particularly bad for the gay mc, with a start date in 2016 or 17 realistically our mc’s last chance to steal the show would be Qatar 2022 and the other one would be Russia in 2018, both very hostile countries for gay players in an already not too gay friendly sport, which leads to some potentially very rough decisions regarding our career versus our mc being who he wants to be, particularly if we are pressured into publicly dating and possibly marrying some wannabe “footballer’s wife” who we do not fancy in the slightest.
This potentially leaves only the relative sideshow of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics as our moment to truly shine on the world stage.
A young 19 year old talent has none of those pressures, if I were playing as a young and talented yet (openly) gay player the decision is rather easy and I would likely decline to go to Russia in 2018 (unless I had some assurances of reasonable tolerance) and I would most certainly decline to go to Qatar in 2022. Yes this would definitely cost my mc millions of Euros or Dollars but being that young we’d have enough time to recoup it and the price would be worth it for staying true to ourselves, imho.
Now being close to retirement with a not so stellar career behind us changes that calculus significantly, though I’ll say possibly not enough to risk and Emirati prison sentence.
Best 11 Male Footballers Vs Best 11 Female Footballers. There is no competition. The men wipe the floor with the women. Women’s national teams and club teams have to play Men’s amateur teams and teenage teams becasue they are similar in level and the women get beat.
I am sorry but do you even watch football, there is a huge difference between women’s football and men’s. USA is an exception case not the norm, an average men’s team will beat your average women’s team. The best on women’s side
say USA and germany will be smashed by the likes of germany argentina or France.
It is not all about size, yes men physically will be bigger than a women but just because women are smaller won’t turn them into messi as you suggest. Technical ability, pace take any attribute and on an average a male player will be better than the female one, and it is not because they are female so they are weaker. It is just that more men play football than women, there is better infrastructure available to men than women as it more watched. I have seen international women’s world cups and what i have seen i can tell most of those teams won’t beat a mid table epl or la liga r bundesliga club let alone the best of the teams.
thought of mentioning something I just thought of. Don’t watch football(but do play it ) and was reading about the England national women’s side, and I’m sure it said some had other jobs along side their footballing job, due to how relatively low their pay is(think in the 20-30ks for some.) and they were on the national team, so presumably lower tier players earn even less. So that’ll surely impact their technical performance, plus women still do tend to look after children more than men too. So if they are big factors(not an expert so… ), if there is a women’s side the author could make their side more balanced in those areas too alongside popularity to make it more balanced I guess?
Before the women’s world cup the US Women’s team played the men’s Under 17 team. The men won 8-2. This is against a team where most of the players haven’t even fully developed in their growth.
I am stating facts. If your feminist mind can’t handle them, then that’s your problem.
This has nothing to do with ‘the primacy of men’. Men are superior players to women in football. That is the truth. If anyone thinks otherwise then they are misinformed.
This discussion now has alarming similarities to a 4chan forum. It’ll be best for the both of us if we agree to disagree. Hm, maybe my ‘feminist mind’ actually can’t handle them. We’ll see.
The person I replied to is basically calling us who are defending this viewpoint sexist and that we are only defending the viewpoint because we are some kind of sexists.
I didn’t call you and your ‘feminist mind’ but if you too believe that women are on a equal footing to men then you too are misinformed.
) and was reading about the England national women’s side, and I’m sure it said some had other jobs along side their footballing job, due to how relatively low their pay is(think in the 20-30ks for some.) and they were on the national team, so presumably lower tier players earn even less. So that’ll surely impact their technical performance, plus women still do tend to look after children more than men too. So if they are big factors(not an expert so…