Can England women’s team follow-up Euro success at the World Cup?

Women’s football in England is definitely on the rise. The success of the national team at the European Championship in the summer has brought in a whole new group of fans. The rise in quality of the Women’s Premier League was recently shown in the Champions League, where Arsenal beat the defending champions, Lyon, in front of their own fans and Chelsea beat PSG in Paris.

The next step will be to replicate that success on a global level, and, with the draw for the 2023 World Cup having taken place in New Zealand at the weekend, Sarina Wiegman’s team now have some idea of the task that lies in front of them.

The stage is set! 🤩
Who will claim the #FIFAWWC? 🏆#BeyondGreatness pic.twitter.com/aaf9lt8zFf

— FIFA Women’s World Cup (@FIFAWWC) October 22, 2022

One thing they can be grateful about the outset is that they are not in the same half of the draw as the USA.

The Americans have been, by some distance, the best national team in the history of the women’s game. Of the previous seven World Cups, they have won four of them and have finished runners-up on another occasion.

They are the defending champions, having also won the tournament in 2015.

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England also got a pretty good first-round draw. They are in the same group as China, Denmark, and a team whose name we won’t know until after an intercontinental play-off. Chile are waiting for the outcome of a clash between Senegal and Haiti, to see who will claim the final spot in the group.

Denmark may be the most difficult of those opponents. They were the highest-ranked team in Pot 3, and are a country on the rise just now, having returned to the World Cup having missed the past three tournaments.

China should not be underestimated either. They finished runners-up to the USA back in 1996, and, more recently won the Asian Cup, although they do have defensive issues.

The Lionesses matches will all be played in Australia – unlike some teams who are having to criss-cross between there and New Zealand – with their games taking place in Brisbane, Sydney and Adelaide.

Winning the group also means they get to stay in Australia, with their round of 16 match being staged in Brisbane.

After that, though, it will get harder for English women. If they do win their group, their potential round of 16 opponents could be the hosts, Australia.

And then waiting for them in the quarter-finals could be Germany, which would be a repeat of this year’s Euros finals at Wembley. That, of course, ended in triumph, but it was close and England also know that the result might have been different had German striker Alexandra Popp not injured herself in the warm-up and been forced to miss the match.

Given also the long and complicated history of matches between English and German teams, that would be a major occasion in its own right.

Their semi-finals could be France, again one of the most powerful teams in women’s football.

They would then need to get past them before a possible match-up with the Americans in the final which will take place in Sydney on August 20^th.

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The Americans have their own challenges, not lost because they have been drawn in Group E alongside the Netherlands, the team they beat in the last World Cup final four years ago (and who Wiegman led to European glory before she was recruited by England).

Their path potentially also includes games with Sweden and Spain, two countries that are among the best in Europe and full of top players.

Should England play the USA in the final, then they should not be overawed. The pair have played six times before, and the current head-to-head record is two wins to the English, three to the Americans and one draw.

However, in their most recent friendly meeting at Wembley at the start of October, it was the England team that won by the odd goal in three. The Americans may feel that the VAR decisions went against them on the night, but it still served as a valuable psychological marker.

Not that Wiegman’s team now lacks confidence. The Dutchwoman usually sticks with the same tried-and-true group of players and doesn’t change her formation or tactics very often. She showed her ruthless side by axing long-time captain, Steph Houghton, from the squad ahead of the Euros, and it paid off in spectacular fashion.

And she has also been able to blood younger players as veterans like Jill Scott have retired from the international team.

The Americans were able to hold sway for so long because the game went professional first, and, for years. Their clubs and leagues could attract all the best players.

As Europe has begun to catch up, the trend has begun to reverse, and, increasingly, it is American players who are joining European teams – although none seem to stay for long.

And, whilst there was once an inferiority complex when it came to playing the Americans, that is beginning to erode.

That does not mean another American victory can be discounted. With the likes of Megan Rapinoe, Becky Sauerbrunn, Kristie Mewis and Alyssa Naeher in their ranks, they still have players that would be first choice for any team in the world.  And winning has become a habit for them, one that they intend to maintain.

But England is now a different force, a force to be reckoned with in its own right. They have got momentum and a coach who seems to have discovered a winning formula.

Winning a World Cup is never easy, and almost every team that manages it needs a bit of luck along the way.

But there will be a lot of planning and preparation, and the team will get on the plane to Australia knowing that they probably have their best chance ever of bringing the World Cup home.