Spanish Girls Team Wins All-Boy League

[Unnamed Trialist]

http://deportes.elpais.com/deportes/2017/04/02/actualidad/1491150485_663639.html

I am posting this here as it is where readers in women's soccer are on the board. It has gotten a lot of press, and rightly so. 

The team is an u-14 team for AEM in Alcarràs, Catalonia, playing 11 a side federated soccer in the 4th division in the Lleida region. They won with 4 games left to play, ahead by 16 points. The vast majority of players on rival teams are boys, at this level maybe 3% of players in mixed teams are girls.

Though with this the team promotes and next year will be in a higher division (3rd). The club does have a boys team playing in the 2nd division, it's a strong club for the size of the town.

Here is the full result of their league-winning game:

http://fcf.cat/acta/1617/futbol-11/infantil-segona-divisio/grup-3/2i/pardinyes-cf-b/2i/aem-se-e

The club has two other teams, all boys, who played this level, in other groups, who did not do as well. 

At this level clubs can choose to field teams in all girls leagues, play mixed, or do what this club has, very rare: compete with only girls in a 97% boys league. My son played with on girl on his team until this level on his then club in Barcelona, it was rare but many girls preferred the competitive environment of a boy's side, at least to u-14. 

AEM has three women's teams, all federated, the first playing in national 2nd division, they play against the B teams of Barça and Espanyol, for example. High level. 

 

[Unnamed Trialist]

17 hours ago, dsqpr said:

Many moons ago I played in a university co-ed league for a lark. The guys had to be very careful around the girls otherwise we would flatten them. We had a couple of physically strong girls on our team and even they complained that some of the guys were too "rough".

At U14 the eventual size and strength gap between the sexes has not yet materialized. Great accomplishment by this girls team but I doubt their success over the boys will continue for long!

Interesting post though.

That is clear, this is the age where things like this can happen. Still, winning a league, 30 match season, that is hard.  The El País article says they worked v hard on set plays, which I also find interesting. Still you have to have v good conditioning, skills, goalkeeping. 

The team per se will not continue, the girls who are into the next age category next season will have to move on, to the u-16 bracket. The club may not have those girls compete vs. guys, they may move into lower league women's divisions even. 

Then they will have to decide to try to field an all-girl team in the u-14 higher division, to try to stay up and not relegate with part of the girls from this season. They certainly would deserve it, but it would be that much harder, they'd be playing against academy teams of clubs whose senior sides are in 3rd tier Spain, like Lleida. Or they could make that mixed, hard call. 

Looking at how Spanish soccer is going, I honestly believe we are going to see them win the World Cup in the next 4 or 5 cycles, you can see how the confidence and support is growing amazingly, late but real.