HONFLEUR, France — American fans have bought more tickets than the 22 other foreign countries combined at this World Cup, making for what sounds like a nightmare abroad, every city a garish little Super Bowl. But at least a plurality of those Americans are young girls and their families, friends and club teammates, and while there are Americans walking around head-to-toe in the stars and stripes, they mostly save the U-S-A chants for the games.
The Women’s World Cup is the rare event that’s both wholesome and interesting.
Part of that placidity is down to Loi Evin, a sweeping 1991 French bill on alcohol and tobacco that ultimately banned alcohol from many venues, including stadiums. (The 1998 Men’s World Cup in France didn’t feature alcohol sales at games either.) If fans are sneaking booze or weed into games, I haven’t seen it.
About those bathrooms.
The main distinguishing feature of American fans, beyond their ubiquity, is that they recognize the reality of a stadium that’s perhaps three-quarters women and take over the men’s bathrooms. This was especially the case for the U.S.-Chile match at Parc des Princes -- the home stadium for Paris St. Germain -- where the women quickly took over the stall lines in the men’s bathrooms, which never had more than half their urinals in use, while all the stalls were.
Imagine how long those lines would be if fans could drink beer at the games.
The makeup of the crowd at the Italy-Brazil game in Valenciennes was roughly similar to the U.S.-heavy crowds in Paris and Le Havre: lots of teenage soccer teams on tour buses and families with their young daughters and their friends. And that match was extremely well-attended for a non-U.S. game, with most sections except one sideline of the lower bowl mostly full. (The same section of the stadium was largely empty at the allegedly sold-out U.S.-Sweden game.)
But the Italian and Brazilians women with us in the stadium — mostly Italians — steadfastly refused to use the men’s bathrooms.
(American and international building codes — Potty Parity laws — require a 2:1 ration of women’s bathrooms to men’s because women take longer and are often accompanied by children; some U.S. stadiums that host concerts have interchangeable bathroom signs that they adjust to anticipate the makeup of their crowds.
It would be condescending, and wrong, to describe this World Cup as a sporting event with the edges sanded off. Like at any major sporting event, the actual participants are suffering through exploitation, injury and bureaucratic bloat. The defending Cup champions (U.S.) are suing their own federation for gross underpayment, the defending Olympic gold medalists (Germany) are decimated by injuries, the best player in the world (Ada Hegerberg) is refusing to play, and instant replay has mangled at least two games so far.
None of that is nearly enough to outweigh the spectacular sports happening on the field, as Chile goalkeeper Christiane Endler became a household name in two losses, Brazil superstar Marta broke the World Cup record (men or women) for career goals, and the USWNT looks like a nuclear-armed power.
The marketing and packaging of the game here is ... curious. The games are limited to premium cable, and the tournament’s imprint in Paris is minimal. Relatively tiny Valenciennes was far more excited to host the tournament, and while traveling to Parc des Princes from central Paris is extremely easy, Valenciennes made it even easier: a ticket to Italy-Brazil got you a free ride on the tram to the stadium.
Le Havre, on the other hand, was a bizarre choice for a host city. There are no flights and few trains in and out of the city. With minimal lodging, most Americans attending the Sweden game stayed elsewhere on the north coast and drove to the stadium. Honfleur, about a 15-mile drive across the Seine, was taken over by USWNT fans the night before the game, and by the morning of, walking around the city meant hearing mostly American-accented English. But even for the fans who planned enough to acquire a rental car, the game, about 3 miles from downtown Le Havre, was a logistical challenge.
The American Outlaws — whose underdog schtick and shameless biting of Euro-style chants isn’t nearly as endearing for the superpower U.S. women — hosted an event at a block of bars in downtown Le Havre, where lots of fans parked, the afternoon of the game. Getting back to downtown Le Havre from Stade Oceane after the Americans coasted past Sweden meant waiting in line for about 45 minutes for a bus that went to the train station, then walking the final mile back to downtown, if you parked there like an idiot. (It took me about an hour to cover the three miles between my seat and car, meaning I should have just walked.)
For the bars that are showing the games, many of them are displaying a cringe-worthy ad with a high heel next to a soccer cleat, a ball with lipstick on it, and a caption that has an “e” added to “foot” to make it really clear that this is soccer ... for women.