The U.S. team won the 2019 Women’s World Cup final, and organisers of the 2023 competition say they are preparing to sell a record 1.5 million tickets! Fifa’s Secretary General, Fatma Samoura, said their goal is to make this year’s tournament the best ever. It all starts on July 20th with England and Ireland competing and ends on August 20th with a final match.
The Women’s World Cup this summer is expecting to have at least 1.5 million tickets sold and viewed by two billion people all around the world! On the first day of the tournament, 50,000 people will be able to watch New Zealand vs Norway in Auckland and 83,500 in Sydney will be cheering on Australia versus Ireland. This match starts at 8am BST.
Australia has moved its World Cup opening match to a bigger stadium due to the high demand for tickets. This Women’s World Cup promises to be an amazing event with plenty of action! The last phase of ticket sales just kicked off, so don’t miss out on this opportunity. England should also qualify from the group and join in on the fun.
Republic of Ireland Challenging for their First World Cup Title in 2022!
This is the ninth time that they’re having the Women’s World Cup. China hosted the first one in 1991, when 12 teams competed and the United States became the champions. For 2023, Fifa president Gianni Infantino promised it will be ‘the best ever’ World Cup because 32 countries are playing across 64 matches at 10 different sites around nine cities in Australia and New Zealand.
Eight teams are showing up for their first time ever at the World Cup – Portugal, Republic of Ireland, Vietnam, Philippines, Haiti, Panama and Morocco. Zambia who is 77th place in the world ranking is the lowest ranked team competing in this tournament. Denmark is returning again after 16 years since last competing in the World Cup. Seven other teams like United States, Germany, Sweden, Brazil, Japan, Norway and Nigeria have been around for all eight tournaments.
England, the champions of Europe, are taking part in their 6th World Cup and will be based in Australia. On July 22nd (10:30) England will start their challenge in Group D against Haiti in Brisbane. After that they’ll face Denmark on July 28th (09:30) at Sydney and China on August 1st (12:00) in Adelaide.
The United States has a chance to become the world champion for the third time in a row! They have won two tournaments before, one from Canada and another from France. Currently, they are ranked number one in the world.
They will begin their journey to win this tournament by playing Vietnam in Auckland on 22 July at 2am. Then, after that match, they will head to Wellington for a rematch against Netherlands who was their contestant in 2019 final around 27 July at 2am. Last but not least, their final group game is against Portugal which will take place in Auckland on 1 August at 8am.
The Republic of Ireland’s coach, Vera Pauw, said the team’s Group B campaign is tough. She added that this is what they have always been working towards. They will play against Australia in Sydney on July 26th at 1 pm, and Nigeria in Brisbane on July 31st at 11 am. The USA recently won the Women’s World Cup for an all-time record fourth time, so it will be interesting to see if the Lionesses reach even more achievements in 2022! How difficult are the Republic of Ireland’s opponents?
What Controversy Surrounds the 2021 Women’s World Cup?
This year’s Women’s World Cup is special because it will not just be hosted by one country, but three countries! However, only three months before the tournament starts, there’s already been some controversies.
Fifa recently dropped their plan of having Saudi Arabia be an official sponsor. This was due to players and sponsors disagreeing with this decision. Additionally, Fifa has also faced criticism for appointing a famous model named Adriana Lima as a fan ambassador.
Brazilian Lima will work on global projects before the World Cup takes place. However, former Fifa council member Moya Dodd does not think it is a good idea and called it “not appropriate”. Furthermore, there is a new competition where 10 teams are going to New Zealand to decide which 3 teams can play in the World Cup. This contest was seen as “unnecessary” by some people.
Ireland and Reading defender Diane Caldwell says that while all of us want the Women’s Soccer game to grow, flying 10 teams from different parts of the world to come compete in New Zealand isn’t a sustainable way to do it. She believes that this could have been easily avoided. On top of this, a number of other teams have experienced their own problems while preparing for the tournament.
In the past few months, Canada, Spain and France have had some news-worthy quarrels between their players and teams. Fortunately, France’s problems improved with the new selection of a manager. Fern Whelan from the Professional Footballers’ Association commented that it is concerning to see all these disagreements in international football. The rapid growth of this sport has been bringing up lots of difficulties.
Fifa, the organisation in charge of the Women’s World Cup, has stopped using Saudi sponsors for this event. This decision was made after Fifa appointed a supermodel as a fan ambassador, which some people disagreed with. The first game of the Women’s World Cup will be between England and Haiti. Even though Haiti is not well ranked in world rankings, being 53rd, it will still be their debut at this tournament.
“The Road to the World Cup
Brazil’s soccer star Marta, who is 37-years-old, might play in her sixth World Cup. She was 17 when she first joined the 2003 championship in the US. Recently, she recovered from an injured knee and missed Brazil’s loss against England at the Women’s Finalissima. Additionally, Christine Sinclair from Canada and Onome Ebi from Nigeria will also have a chance to join their 6th tournament before they turn 40.
Australia and New Zealand may have some missing players in their squads. Spain could be without several big names, since the head coach has a disagreement with 15 players. As for the Netherlands, they may not have Vivianne Miedema, who had an operation on her knee back in December after tearing apart her ACL (knee ligament).
Beth Mead, who scored six goals for England to help them win the Euro 2022, is not likely to play because she is injured. The boss of the England team, Sarina Wiegman, said that event if Beth healed quickly it would still be unlikely that she can make it.
