Spain deserved their win, they played exceptional football, BUT at least we got to the final, very proud of our girls.
You might have been proud of them, unfortunately for all their talk, they were not so proud of you. When they got home, they cleared off asap, leaving thousands of fans standing around in Heathrow, looking like fools waiting patiently for them. To put it in perspective, Ireland had the full city centre reception when they got home. And all they achieved at the tournament was a goal and a point.
The media coverage is what gets to many, me included. That every game (regardless of quality) was fantastic, every goal scored (regardless of distance) was superb, every attendance (regardless of empty rows/seats) set a new record, how every Korean game (regardless of competitiveness) is inspiring the next generation there, along with the standard party political broadcasts you always have to put up with at these tournaments, to remember how deprived everyone involved was, a full and solid 50 YEARS ago.
Men are not threatened by women's football, men's football is serious and has serious crowds in attendance. Women's football is entertainment, where the result doesn't really matter tbh as long as everyone there enjoyed themselves. To demonstrate that, our women's team lost the derby 3-0 at home last season, they also lost by six at the mancs. If that was the men's team, the place would go into meltdown, and this particular parish would go full on nuclear. The post match reaction would have probably been 30 new posts per minute. As it was the women's team, nobody gave a toss. There's the difference.
My opinion, such as it is, is that if a female really wants to play football (or other sports) in England or most democratic countries in the world and is serious, there's no barrier to stop her. But the reality is most of them don't want to be footballers or even sportstars. Most of them would rather be doing something else for a living. And women the world over, regardless of culture class tribe or background, all basically want the same thing; home, husband, family. They talk to each other about it basically every day of the week, if not theirs then somebody else's. And as long as they have that, most of them are happy enough with their lives. Now there's nothing wrong with that lifestyle at all, it's generally a nicer better and healthier lifestyle than what we men live with, it's certainly much more responsible. But it's their choice to live like that, not men forcing it upon them.