Women’s World Cup 2023
This summer’s Women’s World Cup takes place in Australia and New Zealand and is the ninth edition to be held. The tournament will run for exactly one month, with the first match taking place on the 20th of July and the final being played on the 20th of August.
This is the first time that a Women’s World Cup will have more than one host country. Interestingly, despite their relative close geographic proximity, Australia is in the Asian Federation whereas New Zealand is in the Oceanian Confederation. Therefore, this is the first World Cup to be held across multiple confederations. Furthermore, this is the first time that the tournament has been expanded to 32 teams, up from 24. This means that the tournament will run on the same format as the men’s World Cup, which has been this way since 1998.
The tournament takes place once every four years, the same as the men’s version and was first played in 1991, with China hosting. This year’s edition is made up of eight groups of four teams with the top two progressing to the knockout rounds. The USA are defending champions, they beat the Netherlands in 2019. This year there is a total prize pool of €110 Million, which is an impressive increase of €80 Million when compared to the previous tournament. This only serves to highlight how quickly the sport is growing. Last year’s European Championship, held in England, was a very well attended tournament. It generated lots of media attention and also saw a significant increase in fan engagement as well as a large increase in girls taking up football as a sport at school. The hope, therefore, is that this tournament will be a similar success and leave a positive legacy in Australia, New Zealand and further afield.
Venues
The list of venues was finalised in March 2021 and there will be six stadiums in Australia and five in New Zealand. Eden Park in Auckland will host the opening game and Stadium Australia in Sydney will host the final. The highest capacity stadium, by some distance, is Stadium Australia, which is able to host 83,500 spectators.
The teams were divided into four pots, with Pot 1 containing the top seeds. This pot contains the two host nations, defending Champions USA, European Champions England, as well as Sweden, Germany, France and Spain.
Key Players
As one might expect, there are a number of players worth keeping an eye on. Host nation Australia will be hoping that their captain and star striker Sam Kerr can continue the excellent form she showed this season playing for Chelsea and lead them to glory. Brazilian legend Marta is now 37 and is set to play in her sixth World Cup. She had an injury hit 2022 but is back and has been named in the squad, she will be hoping to add to her 17 World Cup goals. England and Barcelona right back Lucy Bronze will be one to watch, she has won four Champions Leagues as well as domestic league titles in England, Spain and France. Germany will look to their 21 year old midfielder Lena Oberdorf, who was named as the best young player at Euro 2022 and was also named as the fifth best player overall in the world last year.
Missing Players
One area that has been a topic of discussion is the amount of star players that will miss this tournament due to injury. In fact, a study is being undertaken to establish why professional women footballers are sustaining certain injuries, the ACL damage being the focus of the investigation. Amongst the players who won’t make it to the tournament are USA captain Becky Sauerbrunn, the 38 year old suffering an injured foot. England will be missing Fran Kirby, Beth Mead and captain Leah Williamson, with the latter two both suffering ACL injuries. Netherlands will be without their all time leading scorer Vivianne Miedema, another victim of an ACL injury. Other players suffering the same ACL injury are Germany’s Guilia Gwinn and USA striker Catarina Macario, Katie Rood of New Zealand and Marie-Antoinette Katoto and Delphine Cascarino, both of France.
Current World Rankings
USA are the number one ranked team in the world, their overall success over recent years and the fact that they won the last World Cup means they are justifiably at the top of the rankings. Second overall are Germany and they are followed by another giant of the European game, Sweden. Both these two teams have strong records in international tournaments. In fourth place are European Champions England and they are followed by fellow European nations France and Spain. Canada are next up and they are followed by Brazil in eighth place with the Netherlands and Australia rounding off the top ten. New Zealand, as joint hosts, are down in 26th place
Outright Winners Market
The winner’s market generally mirrors the World rankings and as things stand, the USA are favourites to win, currently at a price of 3.60. Germany and Sweden, despite being second and third in the rankings, are not as fancied to win this tournament though. It is England whose strong showing last year makes them second favourites to win, at a price of 4.50, despite a number of injuries including to their captain Leah Williamson. Spain are third favourites at a price of 7.00 and they are followed by Germany at 8.00 and then France at 8.50. Joint hosts Australia are sixth favourite at a price of 15.00, with home advantage pushing them ahead of the likes of Sweden, Netherlands and Brazil. New Zealand don’t have much hope of success, despite playing the tournament on home soil, as they are given a price of 250.00 to win.
Predictions
Team USA is the most successful team in women’s football and justifies its tag as favourites going into this tournament. They haven’t lost a match since the 2020 Olympics and already won a trophy this year, the SheBelieves Cup. However, what makes this tournament interesting is that there are a number of teams who stand a reasonable chance of success, with the top four all making excellent cases. Apart from the USA, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see any of England, Germany or Spain lift the trophy. An interesting and likely clash could be England versus Germany in the quarter finals. England will look to go a step further than four years ago, when they were eliminated in the semi finals by the USA. They will be hampered by significant injuries to some key players, including their captain Leah Williamson, but will be galvanised and encouraged by their success in the European Championship last year. It could also be worth considering Australia, as a home nation. Their price is a generous one and historically, host nations have done well at World Cups. Given the issues facing a number of teams, it is hard to look past the USA when it comes to picking a winner, but backing Germany and Australia or even Brazil could be worthwhile. The South Americans have never won the World Cup but they have undeniable attacking qualities and won last year’s 2022 Copa America Feminina, scoring 20 goals in 7 matches and keeping an impressive 7 clean sheets in the process. They are coached by Swedish coach Pia Sundhage, who has success on the international stage with USA, Sweden and now Brazil and at the current price of 25.00, they are well worth taking a chance on.
This expanded tournament is likely to be highly entertaining and the hope will be of attracting full stadiums and growing the game in that part of the world. Unfortunately, the time difference means it’s not an ideal tournament for fans in Europe but once it gets started we are sure to see the interest in the event ramp up. Hopefully, we will be left with some iconic images such as England’s Chloe Kelly scoring the winning goal in extra time in the final last year and the successful countries will have new sporting heroes to adore at the end of the four weeks.