The similarities between men’s and women’s football – and one noticeable difference

Recently, I have gone to see the FC Basel women's team play a few times. For the most part, the football the women play looks just like how the men play, with the same strategies and tactics, the same ball-control skills, the same mistakes, and the same occasional strokes of genius. But last Friday, at the match between the women's teams of the FC Basel and FC Zürich, I did notice something different about free kicks: in women's matches, the defending players in the wall between the ball and the goal put their hands behind their backs, while the men in the wall put their hands in front of their crotches. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 16 September 2024)