The U.S. women’s national team will set out next summer to do something no team has ever done—win three straight World Cups—and its road to that potential three-peat is now set.
FIFA conducted its 2023 Women’s World Cup draw Saturday in New Zealand, the co-host of the tournament with Australia, yielding the roadmap for the first 32-team event in the competition’s history. After 12-team editions in 1991 and 1995, 16-team competitions in 1999, 2003, 2007 and 2011 and 24-team fields in 2015 and 2019, the Women’s World Cup will be bigger than ever—and require the U.S. to face a slightly different set of circumstances in order to win it all for a fifth time.
As the top-ranked team in the world according to FIFA, the U.S. was in the seeded pot for Saturday’s draw along with the co-hosts and the next five teams in the October FIFA rankings: Sweden, Germany, England, France and Spain.
Drawn into Group E, the U.S. will play against Vietnam (July 22), the Netherlands (July 27) and the winner of a February playoff that includes Portugal, Thailand and Cameroon (Aug. 1). That second group match, against the Dutch, will be a rematch of the 2019 final, won by the U.S. 2–0 in Lyon, France. It will also be a rematch of an Olympic quarterfinal from last year, which the U.S. won in a penalty shootout following a 2–2 draw.
“I’m excited. We got a good, but somewhat tough draw,” U.S. manager Vlatko Andonovski told Fox after the event’s conclusion. “But I’m excited about it. This is when the real preparation starts.”
Only 29 of the 32 places in the World Cup were clinched by the time the draw was conducted. FIFA is staging a 10-team, intercontinental playoff in New Zealand in February, one that features three mini brackets to determine the final places in the competition. Those remaining spots (one to Portugal/Thailand/Cameroon, one to Chile/Senegal/Haiti, one to Paraguay/Chinese Taipei/Panama/Papua New Guinea) had placeholders in the draw. The same workaround was required for the men’s World Cup draw last April, where three places also had not yet been sorted. The U.S. men, for instance, didn’t know they would be playing Wales until a couple of months later, following the Dragons’ playoff triumph. The U.S. women are in a similar situation with the Portugal/Thailand/Cameroon winner due to join its quartet. Portugal, ranked 23rd in the world, is the favorite and will await the winner of the Thailand-Cameroon semifinal on Feb. 22.
The most recent FIFA rankings was used to determine everything beyond the spots in the seeded pot reserved for the co-hosts and the three places in the fourth pot reserved for the remaining playoff winners. As such, the pots shook out as follows (FIFA ranking in parenthesis):
POT 1
POT 2
POT 3
POT 4
And from that came the eight groups for the competition, which runs from July 20 to Aug. 20 next summer:
GROUP A: New Zealand, Norway, Switzerland, Philippines
GROUP B: Australia, Canada, Republic of Ireland, Nigeria
GROUP C: Spain, Japan, Costa Rica, Zambia
GROUP D: England, China, Denmark, Chile/Senegal/Haiti
GROUP E: USA, Netherlands, Vietnam, Portugal/Thailand/Cameroon
GROUP F: France, Brazil, Jamaica, Paraguay/Chinese Taipei/Panama/Papua New Guinea playoff winner
GROUP G: Sweden, Italy, Argentina, South Africa
GROUP H: Germany, South Korea, Colombia, Morocco
