Tag: 2023 World Cup

USWNT tops FIFA rankings as World Cup draw picture takes shape

The U.S. barely kept hold of the top spot despite consecutive defeats this month

The U.S. women’s national team kept hold of its top spot in the latest FIFA world rankings, despite back-to-back losses to England and Spain this month.

The October rankings had extra meaning as they were the final list before the World Cup draw on October 22. With Australia and New Zealand automatically seeded as host countries, the top six teams in the October FIFA rankings round out the eight seeded teams for the draw.

That means that the USWNT and the two host countries will be joined by Sweden, Germany, England, France and Spain in Pot 1 of the draw.

Spain’s win over the USWNT on Tuesday proved highly significant despite being a friendly, as it allowed La Roja to leap into sixth in the FIFA rankings, locking down the final spot in Pot 1.

The Netherlands missed out on being a seeded team as they dropped from sixth to eighth in the rankings, while Olympic champion Canada stayed in seventh — missing out on Pot 1 by one spot.

The USWNT’s streak of being drawn in the same group as Sweden will end after five consecutive World Cups. The last time the two teams didn’t end up in the same group was the 1999 World Cup.

As of now, 29 of the 32 spots for the 2023 World Cup have been claimed, with the final three spots to be awarded next year in a 10-team playoff tournament.

October FIFA rankings

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FIFA, Australia downplay reports of 2023 Women’s World Cup schedule change

“No changes to the dates of the competition are foreseen”

FIFA and Football Australia on Friday both denied a report that the 2023 Women’s World Cup could be delayed by months.

L’Equipe reported Thursday that FIFA had approached “European football leaders” to discuss possibly moving the tournament from its current planned footprint of July 20-August 20, 2023, to sometime later in the year, possibly during the Australian summer. FIFA’s concern, per the report, mainly stemmed from the idea that European television broadcasters had shown underwhelming levels of interest in the rights to show the tournament.

However, a FIFA spokesperson and Football Australia both told the Sydney Morning Herald that there are no current plans to implement the change.

“After a successful ‘One Year to Go’ event, the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023 is scheduled to kick off on 20 July 2023. No changes to the dates of the competition are foreseen,” said the FIFA spokesperson, alluding to recent events in Australia and New Zealand celebrating the tournament being a year away.

There have been no other indicators of a push to move the tournament, and doing so at this stage would cause quite a bit of turmoil in the global soccer calendar. While such a move might benefit certain leagues—the NWSL, for example, would probably find it easier to not have a World Cup mid-season—it would likely be a problem for more countries than not. On top of that, the Australian summer is notoriously hot, whereas the winter climate tends to be more conducive for soccer.

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USWNT qualifies for 2023 World Cup

The two-time defending champs are going back to the World Cup

A resounding win and a shocking result at the CONCACAF W Championship saw the U.S. women’s national team guarantee their place at the 2023 World Cup.

The USWNT’s 5-0 win over Jamaica was authoritative, but there were few indications that it would be enough to guarantee them of a spot in the World Cup on Thursday. After all, with the W Championship’s structure, only the top two teams in the two four-team groups would be assured of a place in next year’s tournament in Australia and New Zealand. Iif you take six points in a four-team group, it’s almost impossible to finish below second place, but there are few scenarios that allow a team to mathematically clinch a spot after only two games.

The only outcome that would allow the USWNT to actually start booking their facility and plane tickets for 2023 was Haiti—who fell 3-0 to the USWNT in the opening game of the tournament—taking points off of Mexico, who after a stunning 1-0 loss to Jamaica were facing an urgent need to win in front of expectant home fans.

Instead, they got a disaster. Haiti buried two penalty kicks and a free kick, while Mexico lost one defender to injury and another to a red card en route to a calamitous 3-0 defeat at Estadio BBVA.

The results leave the USWNT on six points, with Jamaica and Haiti both on three, and Mexico stuck at the bottom of the group on zero. With Jamaica and Haiti playing each other on Monday in the Group A finale, only one other team can get to six points, meaning that the USWNT will go to the World Cup no matter what happens on July 11.

For the other teams in the group, that isn’t the case. Jamaica vs. Haiti is now functionally a one-game playoff with a World Cup place on the line, while the third-place finisher in the group advances to an intricate playoff system that will take place in February 2023, winnowing ten teams down to the final three entrants for next summer’s World Cup.

The USWNT will turn its attention to the next objective: qualification for the 2024 Olympics. In the W Championship, only the winner of the tournament qualifies directly for the Paris gams, while the losing finalist and third-place game victor face off in a one-game playoff in September 2023 to be CONCACAF’s other Olympic entrant.

There are now 12 teams that have qualified for the 2023 World Cup. Australia and New Zealand are in as hosts, while five teams—Japan, South Korea, China, the Philippines, and Vietnam—have qualified from Asia. Europe adds the other four, with Sweden, Spain, France, and Denmark coming through UEFA’s qualification process.

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