There is often discussion and debate, friendly and fiery, over which league tops the rest in terms of competitive balance, investment and the quality of the product on the pitch. In many ways these are abstract discussions to which we will never really have a clear answer. That is in part because women’s football is not a static beast but a living, breathing creature with its development constantly in flux and uneven, which means finding a fair barometer is close to impossible.
Some, mainly in the US and prompted by frustrations at the lack of US or US-based players in the Guardian top 100 female footballers, pointed recently to the success of the NWSL’s Portland Thorns over Lyon in this summer’s Women’s International Champions Cup t…