Some of the most prominent national soccer teams in the world are countries that also have some of the most prestigious professional sports leagues. Much of the reason behind this phenomenon is that professional leagues are multifaceted pillars of support for the national teams in which they exist. Professional leagues are often catalysts for the popularity of a sport in a country as they encourage people to gain interested in said sport. As a sport increases in popularity, its cultural importance rises and more people come to the country to play. Second, professional leagues act as year round training grounds for players that may eventually play for a country’s national team.
United States: National Women’s Soccer League by Connie Cai
Germany: Allianz Frauen-Bundesliga by Justin Fu
Japan: L. League by John Shin
England: Women’s Super League by Carlos Reyes
Sweden: Damallsvenskan by Will Clark
Australia: Westfiel W-League by Davis Muthoka
It should be noted that, while we find a generally strong correlation between the performances of the women’s national team and the popularity of the professional leagues, the nations explored in this page all have an established, strong national team. As women’s soccer continues to grow, other newground national teams are continuing to surface and develop, as well as their professional leagues. Our Women’s World Cup 2015 guide have also provided details to some of such grassroot national teams, such as the Ivory Coast – details could be found (in French) in this page.
It would be crucial to continue observing the breakouts of new women’s professional leagues, and their relationships with their national teams, of such newcomers, before we could draw any general conclusions on the prominence of such relationship.
This all looks quite good overall, though I’m offering suggestions on sub-pages. You could expand this opening page a bit more in exploring the link between professional leagues and the international game, and ideally perhaps offering one or two sentences outlining the connection in each of the countries you have studied, so that this is all brought together a bit more strongly. Also, I’d encourage you to add links on all the sub-pages, probably both at the top and bottom of each page, so people can come back to the main page. The side-bar menu also does this but it is often better to have both.