40 Women’s World Cup Facts

40 Super Women’s World Cup facts to get you excited for the tournament.

This is the first Women’s World Cup to be held across two countries, it is also held across two confederations as Australia are in AFC and New Zealand are in OFC.
This is the largest ever Women’s World Cup with 32 teams, the previous edition in 2019 had 24 as did 2015. There were 16 teams at the tournament in 1999, 2003, 2007, and 2011, while the first two editions in of the tournament in 1991 and 1995 had 12.
For the first time there are 4 African teams at a Women’s World Cup (Nigeria, South Africa, Morocco, & Zambia).
Haiti, Morocco, Phlippines, Portugal, Panama, Vietnam, Zambia, and the Republic of Ireland are all making their tournament debut.
Zambia are the lowest ranked side to qualify, they were ranked 81st when the qualified.
The highest ranked side to fail to qualify for the World Cup was Iceland, who were ranked 16th when in qualification.
4 teams appeared at the last World Cup who didn’t qualify this time (Thailand, Cameroon, Chile, & Scotland).
This is the first time the World Cup will be held by a country which is an island (in this case two countries).
Only 4 national teams have won the Women’s World Cup: USA, Germany, Japan, and Norway. Only USA (4) and Germany (2) have won the title on multiple occassions.
Although the first official Women’s World Cup took place in 1991, there wee multiple unofficial Women’s World Cups before that. The first of these was in 1970 where Denmark beat Italy in the final which took place in Torino.
The 2023 tournament is the first Women’s World Cup to take place in the Southern Hemisphere.
The Women’s World Cup has never been hosted in Africa or South America.
Germany and USA have both won consecutive titles (in 2003 & 2007 and 2015 & 2019 respectively). This year USA will look to become the first team in the history of the FIFA World Cup (women’s or men’s) to win 3 titles in a row.
A total of 36 national sides have played in the Women’s World Cup before 2023, but only 8 have competed at every edition of the tournament. These are Brazil, Germany, Japan, Nigeria, Norway, Sweden, USA.
Italy make their second consecutive appearance at a World Cup having previously gone 20 years without an appearance between 1999-2019, that is the longest gap between appearances.
The worst finish by a host team s the Quarter Final stage.
USA are the only team to have won the Women’s World Cup while hosting the tournament.
Four teams have reached the Women’s World Cup final without winning the trophy. These are China, Sweden, Brazil, Netherlands.
Co-hosts Australia hold the record for the most times reaching a quarter-final without ever reaching a semi-final, they have made it to the quarter-finals three times.
Co-hosts New Zealand also have an unwanted record, the have the most appearances at the World Cup without ever reaching the Quarter-finals.
Only once has a team lost a match and the tournament and gone on to become champions, Japan won the title in 2011 after losing 2-0 to England in the group stage.
5 teams in this edition of the tournament have never won a World Cup match. These are Argentina, Costa Rica, Jamaica, New Zealand, and South Africa.
South Africa, Switzerland, and Jamaica are the only teams in this edition of the competition to have never drawn a match at a World Cup.
New Zealand have played 15 matches without winning any, the most of any team.
Nigeria have two unwanted records, they are the team at the tournament who have conceded the most World Cup goals (63) and have lost the most games at a tournament (19).
Jamaica and South Africa have only scored one World Cup goal in their history.
Costa Rica have conceded the least amount of World Cup goals with 4.
USA and Sweden have met a record 6 times at the World Cup, they could meet again this year in either the last 16 or the semi-finals.
Every former semi-finalist has reached this edition of the tournament (USA, Norway, Germany, China, Sweden, Brazil, Japan, Netherlands, Canada, France, England).
The two current players with the most overall world cup goals are Brazilian. Marta tops the overall goalscoring chart with 17, while Cristiane is joint 5th with 11.
In 2019 USA broke the record for the most wins (7), and most goals scored (26).
Argentina are the only team to feature in this years tournament who have conceded at least 6 goals in a game in more than one tournament, they did so in 2003 and 2007.
Marta of Brazil and Christine Sinclair of Canada have scored in every tournament from 2003-2019, they will both be looking to score in a 6th consecutive tournament.
Of teams in this years tournament Haiti had the largest win in qualifying, beating British Virgin Islands 21-0 in the CONCACAF qualifiers.
The previous two tournaments had the joint record for the most goals at a Women’s World Cup with 146.
Costa Rica are the only team at this years tournament that have not lost more than one game.
Of former Champions Japan have conceded the most goals with 63.
Chinese Taipei are the only team to have competed in the first official World Cup in 1991 who will not compete in this edition.
Of all the teams in the tournament only 1 is making their first ever appearance at a senior women’s tournament, which is the Republic of Ireland.
Group B, Group C, and Group H all contain teams from 4 different confederations.