Very disappointing performance. Although the focus here has rightly been on our side's inadequacies, I think some credit is due to the opposition. Mexico are really progressing quickly at all levels of the women's game as seen at the recent u-20 Women's where they were a pretty decent quarter-finalist. Their senior side's much better than their FIFA ranking indicates too and qualified for last year's senior World Cup ahead of the USA (who subsequently scraped through after a play-off). Their u-17's are better than a third ranking for a group (behind Japan and Brazil)- should be a second-ranking.
This really is the "Group of Death" and I never gave us much hope of getting out of it. Expecting to beat Mexico was never on the cards...
Once again our expectations proved unrealistic, based as they were on easy wins in the limpest-of-limp OFC qualifiers. Our u-17 women's qualifying path is so easy, nothing should be taken out of it when gauging the team's strength.
I'm not too worried though because our men's and women's players have always been "late developers" due to the low level of our domestic football - many go on to blossom later. Although it's true we've seen a particularly good crop of young women over the last five years in our age group teams.
Improving the standard of our domestic women's football is not an easy thing with next to no money - I expect Mexico, Brazil and Japan in our group all spend millions on women's football, even if that's a fraction of what they spend on developing young male players. I know Mexico have a 22 team women's national pro league, plus two-thirds of their players come up through the US system (and then choose to play for Mexico!).
Maybe preparing for the heat of Azerbaijan in the Swiss autumn wasn't the best idea for the team?
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Still, our girls won't be as disappointed as Brazil (5-0 losers to Japan), Uruguay (4-0 losers to China) or the obvious worst team in the tournie, Gambia (11-0 losers to North Korea).
Video highlights of all tournament matches here at FIFA:
Longer highlights here at the best You Tube channel for women's internationals:
http://www.youtube.com/user/AlAhlyWomens?feature=watch
(This channel also has highlights of the amazing 6-2 USA win over Australia at senior level last week.)