If it feels as if one World Cup simply ended and FIFA is already speaking about one other one, properly, that’s as a result of it’s. Argentina should still be celebrating the trophy it gained in Qatar — and that celebration could proceed for some time — however there’s a girls’s championship simply across the nook. Right here’s what to know.
When is the Girls’s World Cup?
The event runs from July 20 via Aug. 20. It can kick off with video games that includes the co-hosts Australia (towards Eire in Sydney) and New Zealand (towards Norway in Auckland) on July 20.
The place is the event?
Matches might be held at 10 stadiums in 9 cities: 5 in Australia and 4 in New Zealand. (Sydney will do double obligation, with the smaller Sydney Soccer Stadium internet hosting group-stage video games earlier than being changed within the rotation by the a lot bigger Stadium Australia.)
The total record of cities:
Australia: Sydney (two stadiums), Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth.
New Zealand: Auckland, Wellington, Dunedin, Hamilton.
That’s a great distance from … most locations, sure?
As all the time, that depends upon you. Melbourne is at the moment 16 hours forward of New York, and Auckland is eighteen hours. (These numbers leap to 19 and 21 in Los Angeles, through which case you may be higher off counting from the opposite course.) If you happen to’re a fan of the Australian Open, or insomnia, you’ll after all have options to beat this.
Who has certified?
Many of the favorites and traditional suspects superior simply within the authentic spherical of qualification, creating an entry record that features each soccer names followers ought to acknowledge and some that may increase eyebrows:
Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Denmark, England, France, Germany, Eire, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Morocco, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, the Philippines, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the USA, Vietnam, Zambia.
That’s not 32 groups.
There might be 32 groups on the Girls’s World Cup 12 months, up from 24 from the final event in France in 2019, from 16 on the ones earlier than that and from 12 within the inaugural occasion in 1991. However the area remains to be being set this week in New Zealand, the place 10 groups arrived for playoffs to resolve the final three locations.
Two of these spots are actually set:
Group A: Portugal beat Cameroon, 2-1, on a penalty kick in damage time to earn its first Girls’s World Cup journey. Its prize? Portugal landed in a bunch with the USA, Netherlands and Vietnam.
Group B: Haiti beat Chile, 2-1, on two objectives by the teenage midfielder Melchie Dumornay. Haiti, too, might be a World Cup debutante, and in Dumornay, who lately signed with the world’s finest membership workforce, France’s Olympique Lyonnais Féminin, and a workforce of youngsters and twenty-somethings, it provides an abundance of vitality and optimism that it’ll hope could make up for its apparent lack of expertise. It had higher: The Haitians dropped into a bunch with England, China and Denmark.
Group C: Paraguay and Panama will play for the ultimate spot within the World Cup on Thursday. Every workforce, like Portugal and Haiti, would grow to be a first-time qualifier.
Who’re the event favorites?
The United States, a four-time winner and the two-time defending champion, and Canada, the reigning Olympic gold medalist, headline the North American contingent, however they may share prime billing (or maybe give up it) within the face of a handful of European powers. England is the present European champion, however has a number of worthy rivals desirous to seize its mantle because the continent’s finest workforce. Germany, France, Spain, the Netherlands and Sweden all would possibly make a robust case that they’ll win this summer time.
How about the remainder of the sphere?
Brazil arrives because the South American champion. Japan, China and South Korea have lengthy histories of accomplishment in Asia — although solely the Japanese have lifted the World Cup — and might be nearer to dwelling than traditional. Australia, powered by the high-scoring ahead Sam Kerr, lately signaled its intent to problem with a victory over Spain in a warm-up match.
Different groups arrive with massive stars however longer odds — Denmark (Pernille Tougher), Norway (Ada Hegerberg) and Jamaica (Bunny Shaw) — and 7 international locations are simply thrilled, for now, to be coming in any respect: Haiti, Morocco, the Philippines, Portugal, Eire, Vietnam and Zambia all have certified for his or her first World Cup.
Who’s the U.S. enjoying?
The U.S. is the defending champion. Its schedule within the group stage features a acquainted face (the Netherlands) and two query marks (Vietnam and Portugal). The highest two groups will advance to the spherical of 16.
The Individuals’ three video games within the group stage:
Vietnam at Auckland, July 22, 1 p.m. (Friday evening in New York.)
Netherlands at Wellington, July 27, 1 p.m. (Wednesday evening in New York.)
Portugal at Auckland, Aug. 1, 7 p.m. (Monday in a single day in New York.)
How is the equal pay battle going?
That relies upon. The USA girls, after years of tense negotiations, public battles, stinging insults and courtroom filings, emerged with an equal pay deal that has made them one of many best-paid nationwide groups — males or girls — on the earth.
Different international locations, even massive ones, haven’t made comparable progress. Whereas many have heralded new contracts guaranteeing equal charges of pay for matches, girls’s soccer groups nonetheless lag far behind their males’s counterparts with regards to prize cash, staffing and different points.
Canada is at the moment at the forefront of the equal pay battle: Its gamers briefly went on strike this month earlier than a sport towards the USA, and have vowed to press their battle for higher therapy, and higher pay, via future actions and public protests.
Can the Individuals win a 3rd straight title?
In fact they’ll. And whereas it’s by no means straightforward, it’s additionally going to be tougher than ever. The Individuals nonetheless have embellished veterans like Alex Morgan, Megan Rapinoe, Crystal Dunn and Becky Sauerbrunn. However within the wake of a disappointing journey to the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, after they needed to scramble to take dwelling the bronze, Coach Vlatko Andonovski has continued his efforts to refashion his workforce for a brand new technology.
That has seen the emergence of promising new skills like Trinity Rodman, Sophia Smith and Sofia Huerta, but in addition some uncharacteristic (O.Ok., worrying may be a greater phrase) outcomes towards prime groups. Consecutive defeats towards England, Spain and Germany final fall — the Individuals’ first three-game dropping streak in 29 years — had been a sign that the workforce’s transformation nonetheless has a strategy to go.
Time, nevertheless, is working quick though the expectations — inside and outdoors the workforce — by no means change.
“For us, we wish to win every thing, on a regular basis,” Rapinoe stated this week earlier than the SheBelieves Cup finale.