Never has the globe been more focused on a fixture between New Zealand and Norway than it is right now for the clash which gets the Women’s World Cup underway a month from today.
In the first game of a two-match double-header featuring the two host nations, the month-long tournament in Australia and New Zealand kicks off at Eden Park in Auckland on July 20.
And there’s been all sorts going on in the build-up to the biggest Women’s World Cup in football history, so here’s a quick look at the main stories catching attention with 30 days to go…
‘Today I feel like haggling over TV contracts’
Never before have TV rights for men’s and women’s World Cup tournaments been negotiated separately, so the decision to set up a market for the 2023 event alone was always likely to deliver a dynamic storyline.
But after decades of apathy towards the women’s discipline, it seemed somewhat rich for Fifa – and, more specifically, the president Gianni Infantino – to make the sort of demands which had TV companies across the planet baulking at the prospect of paying up.
The truth is that there was always going to be a deal done in the end – it would have been a massive failing on Fifa’s part to allow the tournament to go ahead untelevised in major regions – but the inability to advertise the coverage for weeks and months in advance has left the World Cup playing catch-up in the minds of sports fans’ mental plans for the summer.
England’s club v country quandary
England’s players have been stuck between a rock and a hard place in recent weeks when their concentration should have been solely on prepping for the biggest tournament of their lives.
The sticking point has been the release date for players ahead of the World Cup, with Fifa relenting on an initial July 1 mandatory deadline to allow nations to enforce a June 23-29 window during which clubs would have to let their stars go to meet up with the national camp.
But Sarina Wiegman and the FA pushed hard for an extra four days, and so it was that most of the England squad began to arrive at St George’s Park on Monday. Yet that was not without a huge amount of negotiation between the governing body and clubs, the latter of whom were keen for players not to be overworked despite domestic seasons now being over.
The dreaded ACL
Everywhere you look, there’s ACL talk. England are without captain Leah Williamson and Euro 2022 Player of the Tournament Beth Mead due to knee ligament injuries, and Mead’s Arsenal team-mate Vivianne Miedema misses the Dutch assault with the same problem.
Meanwhile, Janine Beckie is out of Canada’s squad, France are without Delphine Cascarino and Marie-Antoinette Katoto, Katie Rood is unavailable for co-hosts New Zealand and the USA head Down Under without Catarina Macario.
Every one of them has suffered an ACL injury over the past 12 months, and while there are other notable absentees with ailments of different types, the prevalence of knee ligament trouble in the women’s game is set to be a talking point for some time to come.
Dominant US still the team to shift
Anyone who wants to win this thing is going to have to beat the United States, one would suggest. The four-time champions have never finished any worse off than third and have been in the last three finals, the most recent pair of which they have won.
They continue to boast most of the star names on show over the course of the month, including Alex Morgan, Lindsey Horan, Rose Lavelle and Julie Ertz, and the structure of the domestic game in the NWSL lends itself to raising the bar of competition still further than ever before.
Many are looking to European champions England to cause them some problems, but with the Lionesses’ injury concerns there has been a softening of the belief that the USWNT’s assault on a fifth crown might be receiving a serious challenge.
Spanish mutiny means trouble for La Roja
Things still aren’t rosy in the Spain camp. Almost a year on from 15 of their players declaring themselves unavailable for selection under Jorge Vilda, the Spanish FA’s decision to stick with the head coach has left the camp in disarray.
The players had claimed that their time under Vilda and his staff had affected their emotional state, but with no change in direction the squad members involved were asked to email letters of reconciliation in order to be considered for the World Cup squad.
Yet that still hasn’t been enough for some of them, with Barcelona goalkeeper Sandra Panos among those controversially missing from the trip to Australia and New Zealand. Spain don’t exactly come across as a team full of harmony.
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