[Amelia Chaffinch]

A lot of people saying to me this week that some of the matches in the world cup have been riveting. Having heard lots of derogatory things said on here in the past, this is great. We have enjoyed a lot of the matches. Some good performances. The Chilean goalkeeper had a good match against USA the other day despite the 3-0 loss, for instance. Lots of people saying that Lucy Bronze in the best player in the world. Have any of you changed your opinion on women's football?

[Lord Snooty]

I love watching women's football. I particularly like the lack of cheating.

[St Charles Owl]

Have seen a couple of games and enjoyed both of them. Its not as good as men's football but its probably unfair to keep on comparing them in the first place. Most of the games are competitive and that's what you want at a tournament. Some teams are still poor and a cut below the top 10-12 teams but that is no different at any tournament. If there was one position that is still suspect, its the goalkeeping, even the ones playing for the best teams seem like they are always on the verge of a huge mistake.

[Ska'dForLife-WBA]

Have any of you changed your opinion on women's football?

Yes, in the same sense that I changed my opinion of Tom Hanks's acting between Turner & Hooch and Saving Private Ryan... because in that time he became a better actor!

Seriously, I first paid proper attention to women's footy during the 2012 Olympics, and watched all of the 2015 World Cup, and even across those seven years I've seen the quality and standards get markedly better. The major factors in this, to my mind, are a) more players becoming professional and devoting themselves full-time to the sport, b) quality of opposition improving across the board, and c) increased interest providing a wider pool of young players and experienced coaches to guide them. And all three of those factors are down to televised coverage - not necessarily front-and-centre of the schedules, but at least *available* - for which the BBC in particular deserve praise. I remember some otherwise sensible sports journos in autumn 2012 rolling their eyes at the Beeb showing England Women friendlies on red button, giving it all the "political correctness gone mad" and "let's not get carried away with this silly fad", and if they've got any honesty or integrity, they should hang their heads and admit they were wrong.

When it comes to comparisons between the men's and women's games, the fact is that if you prize power, speed and stamina in sport, it's always going to be the top-level men who are the foremost exponents. However, certainly in football and cricket (the two sports in which I regularly watch women compete), there are enough elements of intelligence, creativity and other attributes not biologically enhanced by testosterone for the game to be enjoyable in a way that bears favourable comparison between sexes. Naturally, it's always in the back of my mind when watching the women that I'm not going to see anything on a par with Jos Buttler smacking a ball into orbit with a flick of his wrists or Jofra Archer beheading someone with a 90mph bouncer, but then, the qualities that we admire in any given sport do have a tendency to evolve over time. Your average Victorian would be horrified by the sight of one-touch passing in football (back then they believed that dribbling the ball past an opponent was the greatest of skills, and passing was weak and cowardly) or the number of LBWs in cricket (because "pad-play" was perfectly gentlemanly). There's no reason why, over time, we can't learn to appreciate different things that the women's game potentially makes more prominent.