Women’s World Cup: Sweden, the Netherlands and France Make Their Entrances
The Netherlands, Sweden and France are the groups to look at on Sunday, the fourth day of the Women’s World Cup. Sweden, the world’s third-ranked crew and a semifinalist ultimately yr’s European Champion, are a daily contender at main tournaments. The Dutch had been the runners-up on the 2019 World Cup, they usually nonetheless have lots of their core gamers from that event on their roster. The French have a brand new coach however are acquainted faces in late levels of worldwide tournaments.
Sweden vs. South Africa
Never depend out Sweden.
The Swedes reached the semifinals of the European Championship final yr solely to lose to England, the eventual champion. A yr earlier than they that, they received the silver medal on the Tokyo Olympics. That got here after a run to the semifinals on the World Cup in France, and a visit to the ultimate of the Olympic event in Rio de Janeiro in 2016, when Sweden shocked the United States within the quarterfinals.
Long story brief, Sweden involves play.
Desiree Ellis has coached South Africa’s nationwide crew again from obscurity, main it to an Africa Cup of Nations title in 2022, its first victory in that continental championship. She additionally coached the crew to its first World Cup berth in 2019. South Africa didn’t win a single recreation and did not advance previous the group stage, nevertheless, and it faces a tall job in opposition to Sweden right this moment.
Netherlands vs. Portugal
The Netherlands have been a pressure in worldwide soccer for a number of years. It received the 2017 European Championship, reached the World Cup ultimate in 2019 and took the United States to a penalty shootout within the quarterfinals of the Tokyo Olympics in 2021.
Its first opponent on this World Cup is Portugal, which wanted 13 qualification video games to clinch its spot within the 32-team subject, probably the most of any crew competing. Portugal is among the eight groups showing within the Women’s World Cup for the primary time.
That expertise hole favors the Netherlands, however after all the matchup’s placement in Group E — with the United States — places heavier strain on each groups to put up an early win in the event that they wish to make it to the knockout rounds.
The Dutch, who misplaced to the Americans in that World Cup ultimate 4 years in the past. will face the U.S. once more on Thursday in Wellington, New Zealand (Wednesday evening Eastern time). The recreation is among the most extremely anticipated matchups of the group stage, and the winner will face a far simpler path within the knockout rounds. But first issues first, and that’s Portugal.
France vs. Jamaica
Despite a profitable run in worldwide play over the previous few years, France has been in turmoil behind the scenes. In March, the French federation fired its longtime coach, Corinne Diacre, after gamers complained of an unhealthy atmosphere on the crew.
Hervé Renard, a well-traveled coach however one who had by no means led a girls’s crew, has labored to regular the ship. But if his pedigree teaching girls is skinny, his World Cup pedigree is lengthy: Most just lately, he coached Saudi Arabia within the males’s World Cup in December, a run that included a well-known win over Lionel Messi and Argentina.
France misplaced a disappointing semifinal to Germany within the 2022 European Championship and did not qualify for the 2021 Tokyo Olympics. After what they’ve been by, a win within the first recreation in Australia may assist stabilize the crew — and set it on the trail for a deep run.
Standing in the best way is Jamaica, a crew taking part in in its second World Cup. Jamaica had to make use of crowdfunding web sites to lift cash for the crew’s journey to Australia and New Zealand. The Jamaicans misplaced all three of their video games within the group stage in 2019.
France arrived in Australia as a World Cup favourite on the mend. Torn aside by bitter feuds, it has in latest months misplaced gamers, welcomed them again, after which misplaced them once more. It has modified coaches, modified approaches and altered ways. And now it has requested Hervé Renard, a revered 54-year-old with a embellished males’s World Cup résumé however no earlier expertise teaching girls, to hold it a minimum of so far as the semifinals.
He began the method, he mentioned, by being open about what he didn’t know.
“For me everything was new because I didn’t know women’s football, how to manage the girls,” he mentioned. “I was lucky because on our staff a lot of people were already working with women’s football. So I was listening.”
