Jon The Blogcentric

It does seem like yesterday when Canada hosted the Women’s World Cup. It was the most attended and most viewed Women’s World Cup ever. I also had fun in seeing the exhibits and even a Round of 16 game.

Now it’s France’s turn to host the Women’s World Cup. The television audience is expected to be bigger, the crowds at the stadiums are expected to be bigger, and women’s football as a whole is expected to be bigger. Eighteen of the 24 teams at this year’s World Cup played in 2015 and four will be making their debut this year. Lots of excitement is expected to happen. As for hosting, France has nine stadiums set to contest the matches. All of them are over 20,000 capacity. Three of the stadiums contested matched during the 1998 World Cup and three during the 2016 Euro.

So without further ado, let’s focus on World Cup Group A. FIFA rankings of teams as of March 2019 are in brackets:

-France (4): France is a team waiting for their first ever major international moment. Their best Olympic finish is fourth in 2012, their best World Cup finish ever is fourth in 2011, and they’ve never made it past the quarterfinals of a Euro ever!

France appears ready to deliver a strong result here in WWC 2019. For their Group A teams, France has won against South Korea and Nigeria in the past, but never played Norway. France however has delivered some excellent results in recent months with wins against top-contending teams like Australia, USA, Japan, China and Brazil. Their only loss this year came to Germany. It looks like France is ready to show the world and this could finally be their chance!

-South Korea (14): South Korea is a team not to be underestimated. Sure, they’ve never qualified for an Olympics, but they did achieve a Round of 16 result at the last World Cup and they have had a third-place finish at the Women’s Asian Cup.

South Korea has had an uneven play records these past twelve months. They’ve endured losses to China, Australia and Sweden. However they’ve had wins against New Zealand, Argentina and Romania. Expectations are low for South Korea here, but don’t underestimate them. They could be one of the big surprises in France.

-Norway (12): Norway was one of the great teams when the Women’s World Cup was starting. They won the second WWC back in 1995 and the second-ever Olympic gold in women’s football back in 2000. Returning to their glory days has been a struggle. The last Olympics they competed in was in 2008. They have finished runner up in the 2013 Women’s Euro only to lose out in the Group Stage in 2017.

Norway has a record these past twelve months of ups and downs. The lost to Australia, Sweden, Japan and Canada, but they’ve also won against China, Scotland, Denmark and 2017 Euro winners The Netherlands. Norway even won this year’s Algarve Cup. Norway could just well be on their way to a comeback.

-Nigeria (38): Nigeria leads the pack in terms of African teams in women’s football. They’ve won the CAF Women’s Championship all but two times. Nigeria is searching for its first major international breakthrough. The best they ever did at a WWC was a quarterfinals finish 1999. Their best Olympic finish was the quarterfinals of 2004.

Nigeria has had a challenging year losing to Canada and China, but they’ve also had wins against Slovakia and Romania. Nigeria could be one team that can pull an upset.

MY GROUP PLAY PREDICTIONS:

France looks to be the top team of the group. They will qualify strongly. Norway looks to be the team to come in second. As for third, I’m thinking of going with Nigeria. This can be anybody’s to take.

And there’s my first take on the teams of the 2019 Women’s World Cup. There’s still more to come as we’re leading up.