⚽️🏆 2023 Women's World Cup 🏆⚽️

Sports
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‘Football is all very well as a game for rough girls, but it is hardly suitable for delicate boys’
-Marilyn Monroe (Oscar Wilde actually)

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The wait is finally over, with less than 24 hours to go it is time for the greatest event ever in women’s football: the 2023 World Cup.

The tournament will take place in Australia (Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth) and New Zealand (Auckland, Wellington, Dunedin and Hamilton), hosting 32 nations to battle it out for the ultimate prize: winning the WC trophy on Sunday 20 August 2023.

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The format is very straightforward: 8 groups of four teams, top two in each group go to the last 16 and from then it’s a straight knock-out. In every group it is fairly easy to see who will go through. Group E is the closest to a Group of Death, featuring USA, Netherlands and Portugal, the first two being 2019 finalists, but with Portugal only narrowly losing to the Dutch at the Euros last year, anything is possible.

Hosts Australia should be able to make it through to the last 16, whereas co-hosts New Zealand have a much more difficult route, with Norway and Switzerland most likely to stand in their way. Anything less than top spot in Group D for reigning Euro champions England should be marked as a failure. No other home nations are involved, but the Republic of Ireland is present, facing tough opponents such as Canada and Australia.

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This World Cup is being held on the other side of the world, so for anyone not in that timezone watching it live will pose a challenge. In the UK all matches are televised and the BBC and ITV will share coverage. Kick-offs will be any time between 1 AM and 1 PM for UK viewers, between 2 AM and 2 PM for Europe, between 9 PM and 9 AM in Brazil or between 8 PM and 8 AM for those on the US East Coast. Daily schedules will be posted in this thread the night before.

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And finally, this is the thread for all your thoughts, observations, opinions, banter and hot takes regarding the 2023 Women’s World Cup. However, if you support one of the favourites like the USA, Germany, Sweden and England, or any of the other top 10 ranked nations, so please refrain from those ever so tedious anti-bants.
No really: NO ANTI-BANTS ALLOWED!

tl;dr?

The 2023 Women’s World Cup: Beyond Greatness

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Hard to see past England.

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The fact this ends after the start of the Men’s football season (premier league opening weekend isn’t it?) is an absolute shambles of organisation.

Will be interesting to see how much the Men’s game is bumped out of the press by it. I suspect not that much due to the timezone but we’ll see.

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Which team will you support? (FIFA ranking in brackets)

  • USA (1)
  • Germany (2)
  • Sweden (3)
  • England (4)
  • France (5)
  • Spain (6)
  • Canada (7)
  • Brazil (8)
  • Netherlands (9)
  • Australia (10)
  • Japan (11)
  • Norway (12)
  • Denmark (13)
  • China (14)
  • Italy (16)
  • South Korea (17)
  • Switzerland (20)
  • Portugal (21)
  • Republic of Ireland (22)
  • Colombia (25)
  • New Zealand (26)
  • Argentina (28)
  • Vietnam (32)
  • Costa Rica (36)
  • Nigeria (40)
  • Jamaica (43)
  • Philippines (46)
  • Panama (52)
  • Haiti (53)
  • South Africa (54)
  • Morocco (72)
  • Zambia (77)
0 voters
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After almost a decade of being annoyed that I’m in a later time zone than my UK based brothers and sisters this is a situation where I’ll finally benefit from it! Yay

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Quarter finals will take place during the opening weekend, the WC final is during the second round of the EPL

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Is there a sweepstake?

Also it’s annoying that not all the games are on the radio, can’t always have the TV coverage on at work.

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Not sure we’d get to 32 DiSers wanting to participate

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10

Might do it on the social board, see if that helps.

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Worry that anything less than the final will feel like a failure for England and be judged as such by the press, but the injuries and squad changes we’ve had could well be a factor.

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I was really annoyed this morning by the lack of TV coverage but I discovered that the games don’t actually start until tomorrow.

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Seen quite a few trailers for it on the BBC. Don’t watch ITV usually, so can’t say if they have been bigging it up too.

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To be honest, I think I’d somehow convinced myself that it started on Wednesday (GMT) when it probably starts on Wednesday (Australia/ NZ time).

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Oh dear …

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Wrong date line?

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Australia & NZ are well ahead of us, timewise. The first game will kick off at 7 PM local time, on Thursday.

Remember that the NYE fireworks in Sydney are always one of the first shown on telly in the UK?

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I’m not sure I’ve ever really paid attention but I will remember in future.

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Hyped for Ireland’s game against Australia tomorrow. Stadium will be jammed with Irish people, I have a few pals going so I’m excited for them.

Don’t see Ireland getting out of the group but if they give a good account of themselves I’m happy.

This post paid for by PROF$.

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Hope we get at least one more rendition of Celtic Symphony from the players.

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