This past weekend, Sunday, August 20th, concluded the 2023 Women’s World Cup (WWC). The ninth edition of this soccer event ran for a whole month, starting on July 20th. The tournament was hosted by Australia and New Zealand, the first-ever joint host countries. It was also the first time the WWC took place in the Southern Hemisphere.
32 country teams participated this year, with eight new countries getting their time to shine and a chance to win. Those first-timers were: from Haiti, Morocco, Panama, the Philippines, Portugal, Ireland, Vietnam, and Zambia.
Because of the unrest in Haiti, their participation is surprising. The team wasn’t able to practice in their own country – they had to go to the Dominican Republic – due to the high levels of gang violence and criminal activity in Haiti right now.
Spain took home the championship with a 1-0 win against England in the final. It was Spain’s first time winning, as well as the first time a European nation has won since 2007.
The winning goal of this match was scored by Olga Carmona, who learned about the death of her father that same day. Carmona shared on social media that it was “the best and worst day of [her] life,” and paid tribute to her father for giving her the strength she needed in the tournament.
Going into the tournament, the USA was favored to win this year’s WWC. Doing so would have made them the only team, men or women, to win three consecutive World Cup titles. Unfortunately, the USA women had an early exit from the Cup. They played a close match but suffered a shootout loss to Sweden in the Round of 16, which is also the earliest they’ve been knocked out of any previous Cup.
Some fans credit their poor performance to the coach, Vlatko Andonovski, who had no experience coaching at the professional level. One of his previous accomplishments with the team is leading them to a bronze medal in the 2020 Olympics. This was seen as a disaster to some since the USA usually got gold. Just a few weeks after USA’s loss in the WWC, Andonovski resigned.
The next WWC will be in 2027, and the host country is yet to be announced.
