(Photo credit score: John Hefti-USA TODAY Sports)
Previewing the 2023 Women’s World Cup.
Group A
New Zealand, Norway, Philippines, Switzerland
The favourite: This might not be the identical Norwegian squad that dominated within the Eighties and Nineties, however contemplate them slim favorites in one of many extra balanced teams within the event. On paper, New Zealand could be pegged because the third-best workforce within the group because the Twenty sixth-ranked workforce within the FIFA World Rankings behind Norway (twelfth) and Switzerland (twentieth). But home-field benefit typically performs a task in these tournaments.
Best matchup: It will not be the place the spherical of 16 qualifiers are determined, however for sheer pomp and circumstance, it is powerful to compete with the co-host Ferns opposing the Norwegians within the event opener in Aukland.
History lesson: The 2023 Philippines squad would be the first males’s or ladies’s workforce from the nation to contest a World Cup finals or Olympic event. They acquired right here by the narrowest of margins, advancing previous Chinese Taipei on penalties following a 1-1 draw within the quarterfinals of the 2022 AFC Women’s Asian Cup.
Players to observe: Norway’s Ada Hegerberg received the ladies’s Ballon d’Or in 2018 because the world’s finest participant and is a six-time UEFA Women’s Champions League winner with Lyon. She is showing in her first World Cup motion since 2015 after a five-year hiatus from the nationwide workforce to protest the Norwegian federation. New Zealand fullback Ali Riley will put on the captain’s armband for the co-hosts and is the workforce’s solely NWSL-based participant with Angel City FC.
Up subsequent: This is one group the place ending first or second may not matter practically as a lot, with the groups that advance going through the highest two finishers in Group C. In that group, Spain and Japan shall be closely favored to advance, with little between them in high quality.
–Field Level Media