From June 24 to 30, in Langley, BC in Canada, a total of 270 women in six teams came together for the IFAF Women’s European Championship. They were all seeking to be crowned as the global top women’s football team. As expected, The United States team won the tournament, defeating Canada in the final.
In fact, out of the six teams, only Canada and the United States had realistic shots of being in the final game. Two more teams had considerable international experience which are Britain and Finland. In the 2015 IFAF European Championship The British had finished to them second while in the two previous Women’s World Championship the Finns had Australia finished third. The final two were unknown quantities for playing in their first international championship include Mexico and Australia which had garnered considerable publicity by securing the first woman to coach with an NFL team, Dr. Jenn Welter as their head coach, but Mexico was a total cipher.
United States has advantage in numbers
The USA also had advantage in home rules. The games were played under NCAA rules with 11-women-a-side. Many Canadian teams play with 12-women-a-side pre-snap motion allowed and a larger field, using CFL rules. DL Jasmin Collins, who on day 1 of the championship played her first football game against Canada, was the Player of the Game for the team’s last game against Finland. For the Australian teams, they have only nine teams with 7 or 9 players, that have been playing for just five years. Depending on where a woman plays for 19 British teams, 7-a-side teams played the regular season, 11-a-side teams drafted from the regular teams with the final Diamond Series contested. The Finnish women play more effectively internationally have transitioned from 7 or 9 players to 11-a-side despite having begun playing football in 2008.The Mexicans have only recently started play for women, but many of Mexican women play with 8 women teams in arenas.