The Malditas, The Filipinas, and The Azkals

In 2012, five Qatari women participated in a qualitative research study, which aimed to explore the negotiation of opportunity to be members of Qatar's first national women's football team. Qatar is a conservative Islamic country which is experiencing rapid modernisation. Part of this modernisation includes the increasing visibility of sport, for example the successful bid for the 2022 men's Football World Cup. In response to this bid, the first Qatari women's national football team was established in 2011. The project was positioned within a social constructivist framework. Five out of 12 squad members, over the age of 18, volunteered to participate in semi-structured interviews. Interview questions probed the women's experiences and influences on their opportunities and journey to membership in the national team. From a thematic analysis, issues such as the management of gender norms and the influence of significant others dominated the data. This research indicated that the women's agency enabled them to manage their situation with a range of strategies and to change attitudes towards women footballers. The winning of the bid to host the men's World Cup has been a catalyst for change in making spaces for Qatari sportswomen.

Objectives. The objective of the study was to determine the features of competitive activities among national football teams based on the integral assessment of playing tactics. Materials and methods. The study was conducted during the 2024 European Football Championship. The competitive activities of national football teams from European countries (Germany, Spain, England, Switzerland, France, Portugal, Netherlands, Turkey) were analyzed, focusing on the playing tactics in 50 halves. In order to carry out the study, the following methods were used: theoretical analysis of literature sources; pedagogical observation of competitive activities; analysis of video materials of competitive activities; methods of mathematical statistics. The statistical analysis of the research results was conducted using descriptive mathematical statistics. The sample was characterized by determining the arithmetic mean, standard deviation (S), and coefficient of variation (V). The significance of observed differences in the indicators was assessed using the parametric Student’s t-test for independent samples. Prior to this, the data’s conformity to a normal distribution was verified using the Shapiro-Wilk W-test. Results. A methodology for the integral assessment of the tactics undertaken by national football teams was developed. The integral assessment of team tactics consisted of 10 specific coefficients that reflect the main components of football players’ competitive activities in the phases of ball possession and recovery. The competitive activities in 50 halves of the 2024 European Football Championship were analyzed. The average value of the integral assessment of the tactics in national football teams was determined to be 5.62 ± 0.43 points. The findings revealed significant tactical variations between the teams, with Spain’s use of high pressing and creative play contributing to their championship victory. A ten-point scale for evaluating the tactics of national football teams was developed, on the basis of which the level of competitive activities is interpreted. Conclusions. The developed methodology for monitoring and analyzing the tactics of football teams allows for targeted management influences on the competitive activities of football players at the operational, current, and stage levels.

Football is a sport that has a very complex variety of tactics, strategies and formations. In this study, the researcher observed and studied the game patterns, tactics and game strategies applied by the Indonesian men's national football team. The methods used are the FP-Tree algorithm and FP-Growth Data Mining to learn the tactical patterns used in the match. Data is collected from a variety of secondary sources, the internet, and match recordings. The purpose of the research is to model the national team's game activities to be simulated with a data mining algorithm, so that competitive game level standards are obtained from national teams that are able to compete at the Asian level. This can be the standard for the quality of performance and coaches of the national team in the next era. The result obtained is that the data mining algorithm can be used to analyze the game pattern of a football team

Contemporary national football teams mirror numerous migration processes. The research was focused on the formation of football teams, examples of migrations of national team members, and changes in international rules (civil and sports citizenship, options of playing for the national team). The analysis of examples of footballers who have chosen to play for a country other than their country of birth shows multiple practices. However, the most prominent choice is to represent their parents’ country of origin. The research results contribute to studies on obtaining privileged citizenship and opportune citizenship, to integration theories, and to studies of elite migration.

Football spectators (N=760) at two local and two international matches were surveyed with the aim of investigating how identity is created and sustained in relation to top-level sport in general, and local and national football teams in particular. Two-way between-groups analyses of variance were applied, and effect sizes calculated. There was a statistically significant main effect for gender, showing that male spectators identify more strongly with their favourite team than female spectators. The findings also include an interaction effect between gender and level of matches, indicating different effects on male and female spectators. Male spectators identify more strongly with the national team than the local team, whereas female spectators identify more strongly with the local team. Strong identification with the national team goes together with more positive attitudes towards the nation. The results are analysed within the theoretical framework of social identity theory (SIT) and self-categorization theory (SCT). Team identification is context-dependent and partly explained with reference to the principle of meta-contrast implied in SCT. Positive attitudes towards the nation are interpreted as beneficial from a nation-building point of view, but have possible negative consequences concerning the evaluation of social groups not included in the in-group.

The research aimed to know the role of sports marketing in the national football teams participating in foreign tournaments according to the opinion of the national football team players. The researcher used the descriptive approach in a survey style, and the study tool was preparing a questionnaire on the subject of the research and study, which consists of (20) items. While the research sample was the players of the Iraqi national football teams, the research sample was distributed in each of the exploratory experiment samples (4), as well as the construction sample (20) and the application sample (30). The results showed that the media have an impact on the success of the marketing process, including the national teams. The national team does not exploit it well in marketing, which consequently leads to raising the level of its financial income. The opinions of the sample members differed regarding the policies and systems related to sports marketing, and the results showed that their role is weak, and the role of the sports marketing methods used by the clubs to achieve their self-financing was weak.

The inclusion of foreign-born sportspeople in national sports teams has become increasingly common. At the same time, the assumed increase in diversity within national football teams has turned into a major subject of (inter)national controversy and debate. This applies, in particular, to the football World Cup, as the assumed increase in foreign-born players in national football teams detracts from the (homogeneous) nation-state basis of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association’s (FIFA) international football competitions. However, the actual dynamics and complexities of the presence of foreign-born players in national football teams within this context have remained under-researched. In this paper, we use the idea of ‘migration corridors’ to examine the underlying structures that contribute to the diversification of national football teams, in particular during the World Cup. We do so from both an immigration and emigration perspective. By connecting our foreign-born player data to three types of migration corridors, we discuss the bidirectionality of player movements and nationality choices. Our outcomes indicate that the selection of foreign-born footballers within national football teams in the World Cup can mainly be considered as an echo and/or reversal of preceding migration flows between pairs of countries, indicating that historically embedded migration corridors sustain or are rediscovered in this process.

The psychological factor is one of the least exploited aspects of football. In sports, developing performance capacity is the primary objective of training. Maintaining motivation and achieving performance are the foundations of the educational-instructional process and have great value as outcomes both individually and for the team. Research hypotheses. (H1). It is assumed that the members of the national football team have average/above-average emotional intelligence (test score => 100), significantly different from the rest of the students in grades VII-VIII, because teamwork and the psychological training included in the preparation develop the mental qualities and properties of the students who play football. (H2). It is assumed that there is a significant correlation between emotional intelligence and the performance of students in the experimental group. Research methods. In the present research, the initial testing was carried out among students in grades VII-VIII and the national football team (February 2024 – May 2024). This research was conducted at “Sf. Ilie” General School in Toplița. The research subjects were 68 students, 35 females and 33 males. Quantitative and qualitative methods were used, and the following methods were chosen: observation, emotional intelligence test (Roco, 2001), performance test (ball sense, heading the ball, complex test, shooting at two goals, bilateral game), and statistical analysis (t-test). Results. The level of emotional intelligence of the students is 86 and 81 in the national football team, below average, which raises a red flag. At the level of the national football team, a strong self-awareness among the students is noted. This indicator has the highest score, 500, far ahead of empathy (-180) and very far ahead of social skills (-360). After applying to the middle school team's training program, we see a significant increase in the level of emotional intelligence. The correlation statistical test and the t-test show a correlation of r=0.86 and a significance of p=0.00 between the initial and final test results. The Pearson correlation shows a strong link between emotional intelligence and the bilateral game (r=0.76), but does not show a significant relationship between emotional intelligence and the other performance indicators. To confirm if the value of r is statistically significant, i.e., if the two variables are correlated, the t-value was calculated. Conclusions. This research confirms that the psychological factor cannot be absent from the preparation of school representative teams. It was confirmed that a high level of emotional intelligence improves the performance of football players, especially in team play, increasing group cohesion. Keywords: football, psychological factor, performance, athletes, school team

The purpose of this study is to compare the performance of the Greek economy with the FIFA ranking of the Greek National Football Team in order to find out whether there exists some sort of statistical association. The period under consideration starts with the establishment of the European and Monetary Union in 1992 and ends with the current year of 2021. In 1992, FIFA started to rank national football teams which restricts the extent of time to be used in this study. The descriptive evidence presented in this paper shows that there exists strong positive association between the level of real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Greece and the ranking of its national football team. Keywords: FIFA, Greece, Football, GDP, European Union, National Teams.

A national football team is perceived as symbol of the national identity. One of the elements of European national identity is race. At the beginning of twentieth century on the Old Continent, most of the state teams’ players were light-skinned, likewise the other citizens of their countries. Nevertheless, since the 1930s it has been observing the growing process of appearance of dark-skinned players in subsequent national football teams. The paper explores the emergence of the dark-skinned football players in European national teams (UEFA members). It considers all the 39 cases of the dark-skinned pioneers in European national teams – from Andrew Watson (Scotland, debut in national team in 1881) to Ariclenes da Silva Ferreira ‘Ari’ (Russia, debut in 2018). Based on them, the text distinguishes the seven waves of this interracial transnationalism.

The English St George Cross has recently become more prominent than the British Union Jack among English football fans. Some authors assume this to be evidence that a specifically English national consciousness is arising. However, the ways in which English fans describe their own national identity and their feelings towards the national football team have not been the primary focus of previous research. In order to explore this area further, online questionnaires were disseminated among various fan groups during the 2006 World Cup, the 2008 European Championships and the summer of 2009, gleaning a total of 1355 valid responses. Frequencies were calculated for answers to multiple-choice items and answers to open response items were categorized using a qualitative coding approach. Findings indicate that the relationship between English national identity and support for the national team is more complex than the increased display of the St George Cross suggests. Specifically, English articulations of identity were not homogenous among English football fans: British, local and even European layers of identity were considered to be more important to some fans. Also, the relationship between English national identity and feeling represented by the national team was often dependent on their success. Finally, results signified a complex relationship between fans’ support for their English club and their support for the England team, which was often related to club location.

While the presence of foreign-born footballers in national teams has a long history, it is often believed that the World Cup has become more migratory over time. The presumed increases in the volume and diversity of foreign-born footballers have, however, remained empirically untested. In this article, we empirically test whether the presence of foreign-born footballers at the World Cup has changed over time in respect to these two dimensions of migration. We conducted an analysis on 4.761 footballers, derived from the fifteen national teams that competed in at least ten editions of the World Cup between 1930 and 2018, which comprises of 301 foreign-born football players. We argue that countries’ different histories of migration, in combination with historically used citizenship regimes, largely influence the migratory dimensions of their representative football teams. Our outcomes show that the (absolute) volume of foreign-born footballers in World Cups is indeed increasing over time. Moreover, foreign-born footballers seem to come from an increasingly diverse range of countries. We, therefore, conclude that the World Cup has become more migratory in terms of volume and diversity from an immigration perspective.

This study examines and compares the coverage of both the England men's and women's national football teams by their governing body, The Football Association (FA), immediately before, during and immediately following their respective 2020 and 2022 European Championships. Content analysis of two of the FA's official Twitter accounts demonstrates some positive shifts in the general representation of the women's football team. However, concerns remain regarding the FA's social media strategy whereby they promote the women's team through a discrete profile rather than their general Twitter account, which has a much larger following. This paper argues that social media provides governing bodies with an opportunity to effectively promote their women's teams and, as such, organisations hold significant responsibility to achieve this should they wish to see the more equitable promotion of women athletes in the wider media.

As reflected by the London 2012 Summer Olympic Games, global women’s participation in sports seems to currently be at its highest levels ever. However, equality between men and women has not yet been reached when one examines how men and women involved in sports are represented in the media. Sportswomen have appeared to be typically portrayed as feminine individuals and not systematically referred to as ‘just athletes’. France’s women’s national football (soccer) team was followed during the 2011 World Cup and the 2012 Olympic Games through two different French websites: the official website of the French football federation and a website devoted to sports news. Using a feminist Foucauldian discourse analysis, this paper presents how these important websites for the media coverage of football in France portrayed the women’s national team and its players during two major international competitions, oscillating between gendered individuals and ‘real’ or legitimate athletes. It also highlights how cultural context and nationalism contributed to such (re)presentations of Team France.

94 progress in participation, 88-90 Argentina auto-ethnography, reflexivity and positionality, 146-147 becoming native, 150-154 entering field,