Luck of the Women’s World Cup draw? How the top teams fared
1:02 pm | December 8, 2018 | Go to Source | Author:
2:07 PM ET
ESPN staff
How did some of the top contenders for the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup fare in Saturday’s draw? Our experts break it down:
United States
This starts out as a dream draw, even with the Americans facing Sweden for a fifth straight World Cup and after the Swedes eliminated them from the 2016 Olympics. But Thailand was the Pot C team that every contender wanted, and Chile looked overmatched in two recent meetings. The USWNT also only needs to travel about 200 miles in the group, will be familiar with Le Havre after playing there in January and gets a game in Paris, where it could play in the knockout round. Trouble looms after that. The immediate danger is a potential Round of 16 game against Spain, or even Germany, as the runner-up from Group B, a far cry from playing Colombia in the same round in 2015. Survive that, and the most likely scenario is a quarterfinal against France in Paris. That, too, is a far cry from a quarterfinal against China on a neutral field four years ago. — Graham Hays
Germany
A straightforward draw wouldn’t fit the narrative for Germany, but this could have been worse. From a coaching change (Martina Voss-Tecklenburg now in charge after interim coach Horst Hrubesch salvaged an initially turbulent qualifying campaign), to the pulmonary embolism that sidelined captain Dzsenifer Marozsan for much of 2018, it hasn’t been business as usual. China and South Africa can be managed, but drawing Spain, perhaps the biggest X-factor in the draw, is cause for uneasiness, even when you haven’t lost a group game since 1995. Win Group B and a third-place team awaits in the Round of 16. But the price for finishing second in the group could be a Round of 16 match-up against the U.S. That makes Spain versus Germany on June 12 one of the matches of the tournament. — Graham Hays