Women's World Cup 2023

We need a thread about this tournament, since the group stage draw has now happened.

The group stage draw for the 2023 Women's World Cup took place a few weeks ago. Here is what the draws for the first round look like:

Group A:
New Zealand
Norway
Philipines
Switzerland[/b]

Group B:
Australia
Republic of Ireland
Nigeria
Canada

Group C:
Spain
Costa Rica
Zambia
Japan

Group D:
England
TBA
Denmark
China

Group E
USA
Vietnam
Netherlands
TBA

Group F
France
Jamaica
Brazil
TBA

Group G
Sweden
South Africa
Italy
Argentina

Group H
Germany
Morocco
Colombia
South Korea

The lionesses are awesome. They get a won for England with real girl power! they need to be celebrated so much for that. I hope they can make it to the top again! It seems lately they have had some very top players in general. I should see highlights of them on YouTube sometime plus, I generally like girl power things overall xD so seeing the woman play could be very enjoyable for me!

Yeah, the Lionesses are indeed awesome! They played fantastic football last summer at the European Championships to win England's first major international football tournament since 1966.

Well, New Zealand just stunned Norway:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/66241739

Congrats to them!

Wow, congrats to New Zealand! That's a great start to the tournament for them.

Well, a repeat of the 2019 Women's World Cup final took place this morning. The result was:

USA 1 - 1 Netherlands.

The USA managed to score an equaliser in the 62nd minute to level the match.

Also, England are playing their second match of the tournament tomorrow morning. They're playing against Denmark. I'm hoping we can get another win tomorrow.

England played their second match this morning. The result was:

England 1 - 0 Denmark.

I thought we played better than in our opening game. And Lauren James played really well in that first half. Although, it was terrible that Keira Walsh got injured in the first half. She was a key player for us at last summer's Euros, so to lose her is a big blow to the team, especially since quite a few key players (Beth Mead, Leah Williamson, and Fran Kirby) are currently out injured too.

I hope all those woman will be okay. It’s good the victory was made, though.

A huge shock happened yesterday:

Germany 1 - 1 South Korea.

This result means that Germany have been eliminated in the group stages. This World Cup has had a lot of shock results, so far. Although, this has to be the biggest one yet. Germany were one of the favourites to win the tournament, and they even started the group stages off so well with a 6-0 win over Morocco. But now they're out of the tournament.


Also, here are the fixtures for the last 16 round:

Switzerland vs. Spain.
Netherlands vs. South Africa.
Japan vs. Norway.
Sweden vs. United States.
Australia vs. Denmark.
France vs. Morocco.
England vs. Nigeria.
Colombia vs. Jamaica.

England played against Nigeria today. The result was:

England 0 - 0 Nigeria. (England win on penalties)

Nigeria played like the better team for most of the game. And then once we went down to 10 players in the 87th minute (due to Lauren James being sent off) they were really putting the pressure on us. But we managed to hold on to the goaless draw to take the match to penalties. The penalty shootout started badly for us when we missed the first one, but then Nigeria missed their next two, while we converted all of our remaining penalties.

The stamp Lauren James did was a disgraceful thing to do. There's no excuse for what she did, and she almost lost us the game by doing that. It's a shame she got herself sent off, because she's a great player and was having a fantastic tournament up until that match.

Commiserations to Nigeria. They were certainly played quite well in that match. They can exit the tournament with their heads held high.

Wow, surprised we won a penalty shoot-out, for once!

But, yeah - congrats to England, although if we want to win the tournament, we'll probably have to do better than this (and we'll certainly have to behave better than Lauren James did...)

The first two matches of the quater-finals took place today. The results were:
Spain 2 - 1 Netherlands.
Japan 1 - 2 Sweden.

Japan were looking like the strongest team in the tournament until that last match, so that result is a little bit surprising.

England play Colombia tomorrow. Let's hope we get a win to make it into the semi-finals.

The other two results of the quarter-finals were:
Australia 0 - 0 France (Australia win on penalties).
Colombia 1 - 2 England.

The first semi-final fixture was played this morning:

Spain 2 - 1 Sweden.

So, if we defeat Australia, then we'll be facing Spain in the final. We're playing our match tomorrow morning.

England played their match today:

Australia 1 -3 England.

This means that England are in the final! What a great performance that was from the Lionesses. Lauren Hemp in particular was especially great in that match. She was constantly winning the ball, doing great runs, got a good goal, and a great assist.

So, the final will be:

England vs Spain.

Wow, brilliant performance from the Lionesses :O !

Will be exciting to see how we do against Spain. We did beat them in the Euros last year - but Spain were without two of their best players, so they're sure to put up a tougher fight this time. But I'm sure the Lionesses will come prepared!