If you enjoy tough female competition you should check out the "Copa America Femenina". It's the South American women's soccer championship series and DAMN they play hard!
In the Uruguay vs Argentina match not only were there plenty of hard challenges but a possibly deliberate knee to a goalies breast and a clearly deliberate crotch kick following a midfield collision. Both women were on the ground and the Uruguay midfielder very clearly and deliberately cxnt punted her Argentinian rival at the 53:40 game time. This resulted in a 20 girl pushing and shoving scrum as the referee tried to regain control.
The next match I saw was Colombia vs Ecuador. No cheap shots but it was possibly the roughest match I've seen in years......male or female. About a dozen yellow cards were (deservedly) handed out for body tosses, tackles, kicks, thrown elbows, etc. Kept expecting a real catfight at any moment as tempers were flaring.
I can hardly wait for the rest of the tournament! ;D
TheRef, I just watched Peru vs Venezuela the other night. Excellent match.
I enjoyed your description of the matches you referred to. I noticed during the last women's world cup, the girls not only play hard physically, but at times there's an almost brutal attitude the players have toward the opposition.
In many men's matches I've seen, when one player tackles another, or takes another player down, many times the offending player will extend a hand up to the player on the ground. This doesn't happen all the time, but it does happen fairly frequently in the games I've seen. But when the girls play, it's rare to see a player extend a hand up to an opposing player.
I'm a fan of soccer no matter who is playing. Men, women, kids doesn't matter to me. The European women's championship is also running right now so I'm binging on women's soccer right now. I just noticed that the South American women are not only good, they play for keeps! Much more physical than the European women's teams. I love it!