The World Cup is the biggest soccer event in the world. Every four years, 32 countries play for the title of world champion. In 2023, it was the women’s time. The competition happened in two different countries, Australia and New Zealand. It started on July, 20th, and the most waited game, the final, happened on August 20th.
For all Brazilians, world cups means barbecues, family and friends gatherings to watch the games, besides a lot of fun. The Women World Cup shouldn’t be different, many were ready to cheer for our girls. “The country of soccer” always has elevated expectations and this year it didn’t change. Besides the match schedules, all the country was cheered up, hoping for a title that our team still doesn’t have.
The campaing
On June 27th, all the preparation started. Pia Sundhage, the Brazilian coach, made the convocation. For the goalkeeper position she called Leticia Izidoro, Camila e Bárbara. Tamires, Bruninha, Kathellen, Lauren, Mônica, Rafaelle e Antonia were related for defender. To act in the midfielder Adriana, Kerolin, Ary Borges, Luana, Ana Vitória e Duda Sampaio were convocated. Marta, Debinha, Adriana, Geyse, Bia Zaneratto, Andressa Alves e Gabi Nunes are the Brazilians forwards.
For Marta, 6th time the best soccer player in the world, this World Cup was the last one. “The Queen of soccer” represented Brazil in six world cups and 2023 was her last try to become a world champion. “Marta deserves it” was one of the most spoken sentences by journalists, teammates and soccer fans. We were all anxious to see her in the highest spot on the podium.
With the Sweden coach and Marta playing, everybody was expecting a different and more exciting campaign than the last world competition. Sundhage started training our team four years ago, right after the 2019 World Cup, in which Brazil was defeated by France and eliminated in the round of 16. Full of promises, the new coach brought hope back, with a World Champion for the USA Team training the women Brazilian team.
In 2023, more sponsors, more visibility and more preparation were the combination that every Brazilian was waiting to finally get. For the women and for Marta. Unfortunately, it didn’t happen that way.
The first match happened on July 24th, Brazil won, scoring four goals in Panama. The name of the match was Ary Borges, who scored three goals. Out of the four lines, Ary starred in one of the best moments in this competition> As soon as she saw how many followers she got in her Instagram account right after the first game, she got very thrilled, showing us that being recognized by the public is important and very pleasing for all the women that stands for us in this global event.
After the first win, all the hopes got higher. Marta only played at the end of the second half, which made us worried about her health. The same happened in the second match, which Brazil lost. In the end, in a corner kick, France made their second goal and it ends up 2×1 for the French girls.
With one win and after a loss, to get classified, Brazil’s team needed to necessarily win their third game with Jamaica. Everybody was full of hope, it should be an easiest opponent. The match occurred on August 2nd and this time Marta started playing, it was our last try to get into the next phase.
What all the Brazilians thought would be easy was getting more thrilling, the first half ended without a single goal. By this time, we were all desperate. A tie wouldn’t be enough to classify, only one goal could put Brazil at round of 16 and we were waiting for this. Unfortunately, it didn’t happen, the match ended on a tie, and the Brazilian dream to see Marta and the girls getting the first Women World Cup title ended up earlier.
Visibility and the fight for equality
Besides the frustrating results, this year’s competition brings a lot of positives to female soccer with more relevance on a global scenario.
Only in Australia and New Zealand were expected more than 1,98 million people watching all the matches on stadiums. The last World Cup record happened in 2015, on Canada, and the total public was 1,35 million. This new scenario shows how the women in soccer are getting more space on media, public interest and visibility. At the first New Zealand match one more record was broken, the stadium had the biggest public in a soccer game in the country’s history, between women and men.
With sponsors, the reality is different. This is the second World Cup that Marta, The Queen of Soccer, doesn’t use any sponsor at hers boots. She created her own brand, GO EQUAL, which defends a gender equality and more opportunities for women in all sports, and that is the symbol that she brings with her in all Brazilian matches. The reason that made Marta decide not to use brands or being sponsored by any sports company is the payment difference between men and women. This is not only a monetary situation, but a protest for better opportunities and more visibility for girls to practice soccer around the world.
CazéTv and the mass access to the matches
Talking about visibility, it is important to mention that, this year, all the Brazilians could watch the matches in Portuguese, for free, at YouTube channel CazéTv. Besides the late-night games, all of them were broadcast on the internet. CazéTv’s team had a reporter in lives from Australia and New Zealand, one of them was Fernanda Gentil, who has formely worked on Rede Globo. Being able to watch for free all the matches is an amazing scenario, since the first Women World Cup that was broadcast on a Brazilian TV happened only in 2019 and just the Brazil team games could be watched with no payment required.
This new way to watch women matches was successful and particularly important for visibility. The public loved it and made their presence in all games. The most streamed one was Brazil X Jamaica, breaking all the world records with 1,5 million simultaneous watchers. Before the World Cup, the most watched women match on YouTube was the Corinthias X São Paulo at Paulistão’s Final in 2021, with 120 thousand people in the live. CazéTv was a huge success. In the first World Cup day, they have already broken that mark, 136 thousand people watched Australia X Ireland.
There is hope that with all this visibility and relevance that Women soccer is getting, the whole public, especially at Brazil, starts watching it more. To turn this into a reality, the channels on TV or even in a popular YouTube channel, as CazéTv, needs to include in their schedule Women sports. This World Cup showed that the public want to watch, we want to see, we search for it.
———–
This article above was edited by Giulia Howard.
Liked this type of content? Check out this article about Lesbian visibility in the World Cup!