As the final whistle blew, the France players did not sink to their knees. They stood on the pitch, staring into space, or slumped back in their seats on the bench, eyes down to the ground.

This was not a sense of disbelief, but one of deja vu. It had happened again. They had been knocked out of a major tournament at the quarter-finals for the eighth time in 15 years, only five years on from losing to the United States in the last-eight stage of their home World Cup.

From Leon Marchand with his four gold medals in the swimming to Cassandre Beaugrand kicking hard in the final lap to win the women’s triathlon, plenty of French athletes have drawn strength from participating in a home Olympics. Not so in women’s football.

It is a sport France has long struggled to fall in love with, as the attendances have shown. Before the quarter-finals, the tournament had the lowest attendance since the competition was introduced in 1996 (excluding Tokyo), with an average of 12,212 spectators per match. Games in Paris have been well attended, but the rest of the country has been nonplussed and this 1-0 quarter-final loss to Brazil will not have converted the doubters.

France toiled for large portions of the match. They created good chances, particularly for tournament top scorer…

Welcome to the 38th Media Mailbag for The Athletic. Thanks for sending in your questions via the website and app. There were more than 170 questions, so this is Part 1 of a two-parter. (Note: Questions have been edited for clarity and length.)

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Does hiring guys like Tom Brady to broadcast football games REALLY move the needle for viewership? Are there people out there who will say, “Yeah, let’s watch that game because ____ is calling it?” Don’t most fans prefer their own homer broadcasters anyway? Am I way off on this? — Kris A.

It’s an interesting question, Kris, and one that’s discussed within the industry all the time given the extraordinary salaries of the NFL analysts who call the top games for their respective networks. The core answer is that viewers watch games for the game itself; the viewership number would likely be close to the same if you and I were calling it.

But the presentation of the game and how viewers process the game matters greatly to leagues and broadcasters because they want you to leave the broadcast wanting to come back. With leagues specifically, they want people in the booth who they believe represent their product — and leagues have some veto power on broadcast hires, even if the networks don’t publicly admit that.

Now for Brady…

Scotland Women’s European Championship 2025 qualifier against Israel was delayed as a protester chained himself to one of the goal frames at an empty Hampden Park.

Originally scheduled for a 7:05pm BST kick-off, the Scottish Football Association (SFA) made the decision to play the match behind closed doors in response to planned disruptions potentially affecting the game. As a result, supporters who had previously purchased tickets were offered a full refund.

Photographed in a “Red Card for Israel” T-shirt, the protester appeared to affix themselves to a goalpost using a padlock fastened around their neck.

Following their removal from the field, the match commenced around 7:35pm BST. At present, it remains unclear how the protester managed to gain access to the stadium.

A number of other protesters have also been pictured by the ground outside the doors of the main stand.

Last week, the SFA said in a statement that “the stadium operations team were alerted to the potential for planned disruptions to the match” and, as a result, took the decision to play the game without fans in attendance.

Israel started its offensive in Gaza in response to the attack on southern Israel on October 7, when more than 1,000 Israelis were…

Chelsea secured a fifth successive Women’s Super League (WSL) title after thrashing Manchester United 6-0 in Emma Hayes’ final game in charge.

The victory secures a record-extending seventh WSL title for the club and ensures USWNT-bound Hayes’ final season at the helm ends in silverware, as she departs following 12 years as manager.

Chelsea finished ahead of second-placed Manchester City by virtue of a seven-goal difference after Gareth Taylor’s side also won on the final day, beating Aston Villa 2-1.

The two sides had gone into the final day of the season level on points at the top but Chelsea exploded out of the blocks with four first-half goals to leave City with next to no chance of leapfrogging them.

Mayra Ramirez scored twice while Johanna Rytting Kaneryd, Sjoeke Nusken, Melanie Leupolz and Fran Kirby — in her final game for the club — also found the net in a comprehensive win over the FA Cup winners at Old Trafford.

In their game, City won at Villa Park thanks to goals from Mary Fowler and Lauren Hemp.

Chelsea led from the front during the first half of the WSL season but were reeled in by City after February’s 1-0 loss to Taylor’s side at Kingsmeadow. City embarked on a…

The first Women’s Club World Cup will take place in January and February of 2026, FIFA has confirmed.

A 16-team tournament will take place every four years with the first edition set to take place in 20 months’ time in a host country that has not yet been announced.

The scheduling will see the competition played during the domestic season in European leagues and between the group stage and knockout rounds of the Champions League.

North America’s National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) season typically starts in March.

The decision was made at a meeting of the FIFA Council in Bangkok, Thailand on Wednesday.

The 37-member council replaced the executive committee (ExCo) as FIFA’s main decision-making body in 2016, following the corruption scandals that tarnished the ExCo’s reputation.

A new global competition within the women’s game has been discussed for more than a decade with FIFA president Gianni Infantino saying he wanted to stage one “as soon as possible” as far back as 2019.

It remains to be seen how teams will qualify for the new Club World Cup with FIFA keen that all of the game’s regions are represented but mindful that the best teams all come from Europe, North America and South America.

Barcelona are reigning European champions with NJ/NY Gotham FC the…

Arsenal midfielder Frida Maanum is in a stable condition after appearing to collapse during Sunday’s Continental Cup final against Chelsea.

The Norway international appeared to go down off the ball in second-half stoppage time at Molineux before medical staff entered the field of play to treat her.

Play was stopped for seven minutes while the 24-year-old was attended to before she left the field on a stretcher while receiving oxygen.

Arsenal confirmed a short time later that Maanum was “conscious, talking and in a stable condition”.

The club also confirmed that she would continue to be closely monitored by their medical team.

We’re all thinking of you, Frida

— Arsenal Women (@ArsenalWFC) March 31, 2024

Maanum has made 28 appearances in all competitions for Arsenal this season, including seven in the Continental Cup.

She joined from Swedish side Linkoping in 2021 after spells with Lyn and Stabaek in her home country.

Arsenal are next in action against Bristol City in the Women’s Super League following the international break.

More to follow

(Adrian Dennis/AFP via Getty Images)

European champions England have been drawn alongside France, Sweden and the Republic of Ireland in the Euro 2025 qualifying group.

Sarina Wiegman’s side begin the defence of their title in April and will have to navigate a group that features Nations League runners up France and World Cup semi-finalists Sweden.

Both teams reached the semi-finals of Euro 2022 and are ranked third and fifth in the world respectively. Last summer’s World Cup debutants the Republic of Ireland complete the group.

The top two teams will qualify automatically for Euro 2025 and the bottom two progress to the play-offs.

World champions Spain, who also secured the inaugural Women’s Nations League title last month, have been drawn alongside Denmark, Belgium and the Czech Republic.

Wales have been drawn in Group B4 with Croatia, Ukraine and Kosovo. New head coach Rhian Wilkinson, formerly of the Portland Thorns, will begin her tenure during Euro 2025 qualifying.

Scotland are in Group B2 with Serbia, Slovakia and Israel, while Northern Ireland, who made their major tournament debut at Euro 2022, are in Group B3 alongside Portugal, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Malta.

The teams in League B do not automatically qualify for…

The Women’s Super League (WSL) recorded the biggest growth worldwide in internet search for global sports leagues and competitions in 2023, research has revealed.

The WSL registered a 258 per cent increase in search in 2023, according to Redtorch’s SportOnSearch report, which measured people’s search for sporting leagues.

Major League Soccer (MLS) recorded the second-biggest increase with 87 per cent, while the UEFA Women’s Champions League was the fifth fastest growing search team, registering a 70 per cent increase.

The National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) also featured in the top 10 after recording a 50 per cent increase.

The Redtorch report analysed data using Google trends from 2023 and compared the results to each sport’s search topic’s previous four-year average.

The increase in WSL search coincided with a record-breaking 2023 Women’s World Cup. The tournament in Australia and New Zealand had a total attendance of 1.9million match-going fans across the 64 games, while Spain’s victory over England in the final peaked at 14.8m viewers in the UK.

Search results for the WSL increased significantly in Zambia and Ireland, two nations making their Women’s World Cup debut, while Jamaica also featured in the top 10 WSL search regions. Jamaica finished ahead of…

Spain will play at the Olympic Games for the first time after securing qualification on Friday night.

The 3-0 win over the Netherlands in the semi-finals of the women’s Nations League in Seville was enough to secure the reigning world champions their place in Paris.

Goals from Jenni Hermoso, Aitana Bonmati and Ona Batlle earned Montse Tome’s side a comfortable victory in front of a record 21,856 crowd at the Estadio La Cartuja de Sevilla.

“I took charge in a difficult moment that nobody wanted and we took a step forward,” said Tome, who took over in September following the Luis Rubiales scandal.

“We are proud of the work we have done. This team deserves to play an Olympic Games after all the prior generations who fought for it and came up short.”

In the other semi, France’s 2-1 win over Germany booked them in a spot in Wednesday’s final.

12 teams will play in the women’s football tournament at the 2024 Games.

Five of those places go to 2022 CONCACAF Championship winners United States, 2022 Copa America finalists Brazil and Colombia and CONCACAF play-off winners Canada alongside hosts France.

The seven remaining places will go to two Asian Football Confederation qualifiers, one Oceania Football Confederation qualifier and two Confederation of African Football…

Chelsea Women have offered a contract to Lyon head coach Sonia Bompastor to replace USWNT-bound Emma Hayes at the end of the season.

Bompastor — who has won the Champions League as a player and manager — is the chosen candidate and Chelsea are negotiating a deal to appoint her.

Nothing has been signed and the process remains ongoing.

The 43-year-old was promoted from her role within the Lyon academy to the women’s head coach after the sacking of Jean-Luc Vasseur in April 2021.

She has a contract with the French club until 2025.

In her first full season in charge, Bompastor led Lyon to a double as they won the Division 1 Feminine and the Women’s Champions League.

Both triumphs were equally comfortable — Lyon won the league with 21 victories and one draw in 22 games and then beat Barcelona 3-1 in the final of the Champions League, scoring all of their goals inside 33 minutes.

Lyon retained their league title the following campaign with 20 wins in 22 matches but fell at the quarter-final stage of the Champions League, losing a penalty shootout to Chelsea after a 2-2 aggregate tie over two legs.

The French club have again reached the quarter-finals of this season’s competition, in…