FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. \u2014 Players and fans from around the world are arriving in Fort Lauderdale as the World Sevens Football Tournament makes its North American debut on Friday.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt centers women, centers female athletes, and it is empowering,\u201d said former England international Anita Asante.<\/p>\n
Two-time Olympic gold medalist and former member of the US Women\u2019s National Team, Tobin Heath, said the advisory council of former stars has helped shape the new, fast-paced format. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis was a unique perspective for us as footballers because we\u2019ve always been the afterthought,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The seven-a-side game features no offside rule, a half-sized pitch and two 15-minute halves \u2014 with music playing throughout. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think you have more opportunities for touches on the ball, as individuals as well as a team, more special moments, hopefully more goals,\u201d Asante said.<\/p>\n
The event also includes a $5 million prize pool, which Heath called the most significant she\u2019s seen in women\u2019s soccer.<\/p>\n
Eight global teams will compete in group play, leading to semifinals and Sunday\u2019s final.<\/p>\n
\u201ct\u2019s gonna be exciting, it\u2019s fun, it\u2019s fast. It\u2019s joyous,\u201d Asante said. \u201cAnd it\u2019s a festival kind of vibe and occasion as well, so get yourself out there, you don\u2019t wanna miss out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Matches start at 5 p.m. Friday at Beyond Bancard Field. Tickets are still available.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. \u2014 Players and fans from around the world are arriving in Fort Lauderdale as the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":72972,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[249,251,250],"class_list":["post-72971","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-lauderdale","tag-fort-lauderdale","tag-fort-lauderdale-headlines","tag-fort-lauderdale-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72971"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72971\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}