United States and France are favorites for the FIFA Women's World Cup 2019

The biggest tournament in the world is back. From Friday, when the organizing country France will face South Korea, the Women's World Cup will take place next month. It will offer football fans in the United States not only a tournament team, but a favorite to win.

In 2015, the United States won their first World Cup since 1999 beating Japan 5-2 in the final. Carli Lloyd scored a hat trick in the first half, including a goal in which she missed the midfield goalkeeper, and the trophy returned to the Americans. But in 2019, the competition is deeper and better than ever, as women's football continues to grow around the world and the American talent gap is shrinking every year.

The United States kick off their World Cup on Tuesday against Thailand, but with a month of football to play, let's take a look at the tournament by breaking down some of the story lines. In the words of US midfielder McCall Zerboni – who, somewhat controversially, has not been on the US list – it's a tournament for "fucking winners".

The format

As in the 2015 tournament, 24 teams are divided into six groups of four. After the round robin, the top two teams in each group qualify for the next round, as well as the top four teams with the most points. With so many qualified teams, a team does not need to play perfect football from start to finish. In 2015, for example, Switzerland qualified with one win and two group losses and Sweden reached the round of 16 with three draws.

Because of this generous format, it is almost inconceivable that a major candidate can not qualify for the knockout stages. In 2015, in addition to North Korea, which had been banned because of a doping scandal, each of the top 12 teams in the FIFA rankings at the time had reached the round of 16.

Five Thirty EightForecasts illustrate this predictive ease. The United States, England, Japan, Australia, France, Sweden, Germany, Brazil, the Netherlands and Canada all have a chance to progress north by 90% – which represents more than half the number of sixteen-year playoff rounds.

Where in the world is the best player in the world?

While the best players in this sport arrive in France for the last edition of the best sporting event in the world, a player will be visibly absent. Norway's Ada Hegerberg, the first winner of the Golden Ball in 2018, who was last seen when a final triumph in just 16 minutes of the Champions League final, will not compete in the World Cup despite the qualification of Norway.

Hegerberg has not played for Norway for two years because, as she told a Norwegian newspaper, "I think women's football does not have the respect it has. merit in Norway ". After Hegerberg's departure, the Norwegian federation has agreed to pay for both The senior men's and women's teams have also appointed a woman to head the national teams, but Hegerberg has expressed dissatisfaction with the development of women's football in his country and will not play in France.

Gender-based treatment is not an isolated incident for Hegerberg; The presenter of his Ballon d'Or trophy, DJ Martin Solveig, asked him to play on the stage. Her refusal to participate in the World Cup testifies to the more general divide of women's football and women's sport in general, which will be an undercurrent throughout this month's tournament. In March, American women filed a lawsuit against the US federation alleging "institutionalized sexist discrimination", while similar complaints have disrupted the coaching situation and distorted policies in the world of football.

The state of the USWNT

The Americans are the reigning champions and the world's leading team according to FIFA rankings and Five Thirty EightRating system. Their lineup is filled with veterans of the World Cup and they are the favorites to win again. Since their surprisingly early exit to the 2016 Olympics – the first time the Americans have missed the semifinals of a major tournament – they have won 39 games, tied four times and lost just three. (And two of those losses occurred in March 2017 and they lost only once in two and a half years.)

In terms of position, they are the strongest at the front and the weakest at the rear. Lloyd, Mallory Pugh and Christen Press would be one of the best attack trios in this tournament, and this is the United States. backups on the front line. They are preceded by a group of world-class beginners with complementary skills: Alex Morgan is the finisher and in better shape for years; Tobin Heath demonstrates creativity and a verve attack; and Megan Rapinoe spends every game discussing opportunities to score goals from all angles, for herself and her teammates.

The midfielder composed of three women and presumed starters, Julie Ertz (a central defender of the 2015 team that has since evolved), Rose Lavelle and Lindsey Horan, offers a mix of defensive chops and offensive pressure. But the back line is comparatively less proven, with some new faces in defense and a new goalkeeper, Alyssa Naeher, who becomes the first no. 1 American goalie other than Hope Solo and Brianna Scurry since the 1994 World Cup.

The Americans easily qualified for the World Cup. In the 2018 CONCACAF Championship, which doubled as a qualifying tournament for the region, the United States beat their opponent by a combined margin of 26-0 in five wins. The quality of this opposition, however, played a role in the unbalanced scores. Except for the United States and Canada – against which the United States won with a relatively light line (2-0) – no North American country ranks in the top 25 of the FIFA world rankings.

This divergence suggests an astounding split in US results. This is how the United States has behaved in all of its games since the 2016 Olympic Games, depending on the caliber of their opposition:

In the United States, one could just as easily embarrass a JV team. Competition is remarkably even against other elites. The talented attack stammers in particular this last group. Ten times in 16 games against the top 10, the United States failed to score more than one goal. This has only been done five times in 30 games against weaker opponents.

If this trend continues over the next month, the United States will have an easy way to qualify for the round of 16, but will face a much tougher challenge as the tournament progresses.

Opponents of the United States

The United States received a generally friendly draw for the group stage. The first opponent is Thailand, ranked 34th by FIFA and 3rd worst team of the tournament by Five Thirty Eight; The last meeting between the two countries resulted in a 9-0 defeat in September 2016. Chile ranks 39th and is ranked second Five Thirty Eight, that the United States beat 3-0 and 4-0 in consecutive friendly matches at the end of last summer.

The last group match against Sweden (No. 9 FIFA) is a more difficult obstacle. The Swedes defeated the United States in a group stage in 2011, shot a rematch in 2015, and then eliminated the Americans in the Olympic quarterfinals with shots on goal. But because the first two opponents seem so overfished, if the United States enters the last group game and still needs points to qualify for the knockout stages, something will have gone terribly wrong.

The bigger planning problem for the United States comes later. If the Americans win their group, and if France does the same thing, the two powers should meet in the quarterfinals. Three games against France since the Olympic Games in 2016 have resulted in two French wins and one draw. And if all the groups go from chalk to chalk and all the favorites win, the Americans could be forced to handle something like a France-England-Germany succession in the last three rounds. These are the top three teams in the world, other than the United States. Americans may be the favorites to win again, but it will certainly not be easy work.

Five best games arbitrarily classified from the group stage

If you do not have the time to focus on all the games in the first round, they are the brightest pairs of the best teams before the start of the round of 16.

5. Canada against the Netherlands; Thursday, June 20th at noon
4. Germany against Spain; Wednesday, June 12 at noon (Eastern Time)
3. Australia vs Brazil; Thursday, June 13 at noon (Eastern Time)
2. United States against Sweden; Thursday, June 20 at 15h E.T.
1. England vs Japan; Wednesday, June 19 at 15h E.T.

Non-American suitors

France (No. 4 FIFA) is at the top of this ranking, both because France ranks among the best and his country is at the advantage. The French team has never achieved better results than fourth place in the World Cup and a defeat on penalties against Germany in the quarterfinals of 2015, but it is about to break through for years . Several important strikers of the recent French vintage have aged in the team, moving the attacker from a smooth attack to a more pragmatic balance, but striker Eugénie Le Sommer may score enough to score the winning goal. France's lineup includes a good part of Lyon's spine, the four-time winner of the Champions League, which means the group is both extraordinarily skilled and used to playing together.

France's organizational tasks should also help, as the country tries to become the first to simultaneously hold the men's and women's World Cup trophies. A study in Soccernomics have found that in men's international football, home field advantage is about two-thirds of a goal per game, and that the use of the French host country forces other countries to cover unknown terrain. For the past three years, for example, the United States have played seven games off the ground. They scored just one goal in each of those games – against an average of 3.72 goals per home game over that period.

Beyond France, some traditional powers enter the tournament with a more vulnerable appearance than in the past. Brazil (FIFA No. 10) has somehow lost nine games in a row, which puts them in such an atrocious form that even a tournament version of star striker Marta is unlikely to save the team. Japan (# 7) seems to be a little caught between the generations and must depend on the breakaways of young players, while the most realistic hope (No. 5) of Canada in this tournament could well be that the # Totemic striker Christine Sinclair sets an unprecedented international record. ; she needs four more to pass Abby Wambach in the lead.

Germany (No. 2) is a leading competitor, as always, having won the 2016 Olympic gold and passed the qualifications. the Germans have not lost a match for more than a year. England (No. 3) aims to get the country's third best place in 2015 (which was ruined by a losing goal in the semifinal play-offs), although they played irregular way lately, mixing impressive wins and lethargic results with seemingly no motive. With star striker Sam Kerr, Australia (No. 6) is also a candidate if everything goes well, the Matildas bringing to France a dynamic attack and a fleeing defense. (See: the team's 5-3 aggressive defeat by the United States in a tune this spring.) Look at Australia's games if goals are the top priority.

Outside this ring of traditional powers, the best black horse looks like the Netherlands (No. 8), which won the 2017 European title on national soil, then crossed several continental qualifying rounds to qualify for the World Cup. world. Spain (No. 13), Italy (No. 15) and New Zealand (No. 19) could also make noise – but even as the world's talent grows, it's still likely that this tournament is dominated by the usual suspects.

Of course, this idea may have been a logical prediction last summer as well, when Croatia stunned a succession of teams en route to the men's final. France wins again, because France could still win this summer, but in a single football game, no result is too far away.

Unless the United States loses against Thailand. If the United States drops their first match, something really strange is needed.