Hope springs eternal
I’m not sure if I’m allowed to write this, whether typing these words might see me extradited, banished to a barren island off the coast of Donegal, but I’ll take the risk. So here it is: I haven’t been impressed by the female pundits during this World Cup. That doesn’t mean I feel threatened by them, or that I’m a rabid misogynist, it simply means that, when judged on their merits, Alex Scott, Eni Aluko, and Stephanie Roche haven’t contributed anything of note to their respective channels.
Yes, they’ve spoken articulately, done their research and shown themselves to be knowledgeable about the game. But isn’t that what they’re supposed to do? Isn’t that the job in a nutshell?
Of course it’s more difficult for them than it would be for any man entering the world of punditry; the spotlight has been upon them, their every word scrutinised, their appearance, their demeanour analysed by a suspicious audience, an audience just dying to see them mess up.
It’s to their credit that they haven’t messed up, that they’ve held their own in a pressurised environment. Because you’ve got the sense that it’s not just the audience who begrudge their presence, but some of their colleagues too.
So they should be applauded, congratulated for their courage, and for paving the way for others. But to suggest that they’ve shown up the lads, that they’ve wowed us with their insights, with in-depth critiques of false number nines and wing-backs is just wrong.
What they have done is played it very safe, they’ve been purposely inoffensive, stayed firmly within the lines, never once deviating from the script. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Most male pundits do the exact same thing; Jamie Redknapp has made a career out of it. And yes, it’s true that, in some cases, they have offered more than their male counterparts, but, with the greatest of respect, a ventriloquist’s dummy could contribute more to a conversation than the gormless Phil Neville.
But much of the praise heaped upon them emanates from their gender, and how they’ve entered these testosterone-fuelled studios without flinching. What they’ve said has somehow been of secondary importance.
Up until Monday that was my view on this subject; I could take or leave female pundits, I wasn’t bothered either way. And then during RTÉ’s coverage of Brazil and Mexico a new face appeared, an admittedly pretty face, but one with an awful lot to say.
I knew little about Hope Solo before I saw her on television this week. I was vaguely aware that she’d been in trouble for domestic abuse and that she was a big deal in the States, but that was as far as it went. And, given what I’d seen from Scott, Aluko, and Roche, I didn’t expect her to do anything out of the ordinary, presuming that she, like her predecessors, would keep it simple and uncomplicated.
How wrong I was. Maybe it’s because she’s a genuine superstar in her sport and is therefore more accustomed to being in front of the camera, but Solo was a revelation from the outset. Flanked by the ever-serious Richie Sadler and Keith Andrews, she brought a freshness and vitality to proceedings. There were no sense of her being intimidated, and why would there be?
The lads were a pair of lower-level cloggers, Solo has two Olympic Gold medals and a World Cup winners’ medal in her locker. And while they shifted uncomfortably, I was hanging on her every word, unsure what she was going to say or do next. She was entertaining, I wanted to watch her, I wanted to hear what she had to say.
The naysayers among you will accuse me of being taken in by those big blue eyes, by that lustrous hair, and toothy smile, and suggest that were Ms Solo not so strikingly beautiful I wouldn’t be so enchanted by her. That’s probably true. But looks will only get you so far, and if she hadn’t had the personality, the intelligence, to match, I would quickly have grown tired of her.
The fact is that, unlike the other female pundits, she is the full package, capable of bewitching male viewers with both her brains and her beauty.
And the strangest thing of all? After a couple of days it didn’t really matter that she was a woman. What mattered was what she had to say. Her gender, the whole brouhaha over female pundits, had become irrelevant. She was just one of the lads, albeit one with loads of medals.
