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Thailand's World Cup Hopes Could Hinge On Not Getting Stomped By The USWNT
In a few hours’ time, barring a sequence of events so improbable as to not even merit serious concern, the USWNT will have easily beaten Thailand in the two countries’ opening 2019 Women’s World Cup match. The extent of that essentially guaranteed result—as in, whether the U.S.’s impending victory l...
It's Great That Chile Are Here, But They Will Probably Get Torn To Shreds
Like pretty much every South American women’s team not named Brazil, Chile have forever struggled for attention and support from their country. While men’s soccer dominates the minds of fans, Chile’s women hadn’t qualified for a single Olympics or World Cup before this year. How could they hope to w...
New Zealand Have Gone Through Hell, And Now They're Back To Being Mediocre
New Zealand are the cockroaches of women’s international soccer—they’re always around. By virtue of playing in limp-ass Oceania and therefore having the luxury to qualify for the biggest tournaments simply by beating up on the even tinier nations around them, New Zealand essentially get free admissi...
Cameroon, The Cinderellas Of The Last World Cup, Are Back For Another Dance
A side effect of women’s soccer being so discouraged and underfunded in most every part of the world is that only rarely do we see many true upsets or surprises. The traditional powers usually have such enormous structural advantages, and have had them for so long, that they almost always win, and w...
Canada Will Try (And Probably Fail) To Win It All For Christine Sinclair
Christine Sinclair is still doing it. By the time Canada play their second game at the 2019 World Cup, their captain will be 36 years old, and she will still be the team’s most important player. Sitting just three career goals away from tying Abby Wambach’s international record of 184, the legendary...
Scotland Can Become Stars In Their First Performance On The Big Stage
Most countries making their debut in a tournament like the World Cup are just happy to be there. Implied in a country making it to its first major tournament is that the country in the very recent past was not very good, and its soccer infrastructure is at an incredibly early stage of its developmen...
Japan Arrive At The World Cup With A New Look And Something To Prove
The USA’s top nemesis in the Women’s World Cup comes into 2019 with plenty of questions to answer, despite winning it all in 2011 and placing second in 2015. A disastrous failure to qualify for the 2016 Olympics ended the eight-year tenure of Japanese manager Norio Sasaki, and as Japan enter their f...
Italy Are Back In The World Cup After A 20-Year Absence, And They Intend To Stay A While
In the months following the Italian men’s national team’s failure to qualify for the 2018 World Cup in Russia, Italy’s women helped redeemed the country by winning seven straight matches in their qualification run to the women’s version of the tournament. That blistering streak of form was enough fo...
It's Been A Long, Tough Journey For Jamaica, And Just Making It To The World Cup Is Enough
Thanks in large part to the support of Bob Marley’s daughter, Cedella Marley, Jamaica’s Reggae Girlz are about to compete at the World Cup for the first time ever. While it’d be far too optimistic to expect them to pull off any kind of shocker in Group C, if you consider Jamaica’s status (or lack th...
Australia Are Pure, Thrilling, Perilous Anarchy
Australia are front-runners for the title of most entertaining team at the Women’s World Cup. The chaotically good Matildas head to France this summer with the stated goal of winning the trophy but the more important (at least for non-Aussies) unstated goal of becoming everyone’s second favorite tea...
Free From Their Sexist, Tyrannical Former Manager, Spain Can Finally Just Play Soccer
They say that when God closes a door, he opens a window, and that wisdom is knowing to stop worrying about the closed door and start taking advantage of the open window. The metaphor applies to the Spain women’s soccer team’s experience at their first World Cup four years ago. The closed door was th...
South Africa's World Cup Debutantes Are Already Legends
No matter what happens in France this summer, the players that make up the South Africa women’s national team are already legends....
Norway Might Have Won The Whole Thing, If Only They Hadn't Alienated The Best Player In The World
The situation with Norway’s women’s soccer team is like something out of the Iliad. In this analogy, the World Cup is the Trojan War, the Norwegian team is the heavily armed but nonetheless overmatched Greek army, and Ada Hegerberg is Achilles, the Grecian hero of otherworldly abilities who very wel...
Nigeria Have The Star Power To Go Down In A Blaze Of Glory
The question before Nigeria heading into this World Cup is the same one they’ve faced going into every other World Cup: Will this be the tournament the Super Falcons finally put it all together and make a real run? Unfortunately, the answer is probably the same as it has been in years past: No, this...
South Korea Are No Minnows, But They're Still Food For The World Cup's Sharks
The best thing you can say about South Korea coming into this World Cup is that they are fine....
France's Women Are On A Mission To Establish Worldwide Soccer Dominance
If the 100 percent non-existent aliens that purportedly flit about Earth’s skies were in fact real, and if they somehow mustered enough gumption in their lily liver-equivalent alien organs to descend upon the far superior human race and challenge us to a pair of soccer matches—one men’s, one women’s...
Can James Rodríguez One-Up Himself And Lead Colombia Even Deeper Into The World Cup?
Colombia have talent all over the pitch. Their back line is led by two young and already studly central defenders, their midfield options offer a good mix of defensive solidity and experience with attacking verve and youth, their striker is great and so is their right winger. So it’s not like James ...
Panama Have Already Reached The Promised Land
For most teams in the competition, the World Cup is an opportunity. Once a team has qualified for the big tournament, they then set their sights on what success at the World Cup would look like, and then they endeavor to go realize that success. What counts as success of course varies from country t...
Germany Aren't Very German, But They Are Still Amazing Anyway
National identities in soccer are real. Mostly they emerge from the styles of play and the youth coaching methods that predominate in any given country’s soccer setup, and the values those styles and methods reflect. There is a reason why Brazil are almost always led by graceful and expressive attac...
(Almost) Everything You Need To Know About World Cup Group G, In (Almost) One Minute<em></em>
The 2018 World Cup has now commenced. Just because the USMNT blows and didn’t make the tournament, that’s no reason for you not to pay attention to the best sporting event on the planet. Here’s everything you absolutely must know about Group G, all in one neat little video....