⚽ Two big questions ahead of the 2023 FIFA World Cup
Foot forward
Welcome to the 16th edition of Plot the Ball for 2023.
If you missed the previous edition, you can read it here:
The 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup starts later this week. Here are a couple of questions I’ll be thinking about related to the current bookmakers’ favourites: the USA, the defending champions, and last summer’s Euro 2022 winners England.
Two big questions ahead of the 2023 FIFA World Cup
As we saw in the last edition of the newsletter, it’s rare that the lay of the land in top-level sport isn’t changing — even if more casual fans don’t notice it.
Ahead of the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup, US broadcaster FOX Sports has been running an attention-grabbing commercial which is aimed squarely at that sort of fan, presenting the US Women’s National Team in the position they’ve traditionally occupied: on top of the world.
However, there’s a risk that — once the tournament gets underway — FOX will end up looking like they haven’t realised that the ground has moved beneath them.
Of course, the USWNT are still first in the current FIFA Women’s World Ranking — but by nature such systems1 are only lagging measures of team quality.
Whether the Americans are still as capable of domination as these rankings — and FOX Sports — think they are will be one of the most interesting questions to track as the action unfolds in Australia and New Zealand over the next few weeks.
Across the Atlantic, a different question will occur to many of the casual fans attracted to women’s football by England’s triumph at Euro 2022 when they see the Lionesses sitting only fourth in the latest FIFA rankings.
Does this system adequately capture the team’s recent improvement under current manager Sarina Wiegman?
As the chart above indicates, things have tightened considerably at the top of the rankings since the last World Cup in 2019 — with England climbing, and the USWNT falling back closer to the pack.
The Americans’ (relative) decline in quality is really a consequence of the torch being passed from one generation of players to the next. As ESPN noted in their tournament preview:
And, as is often the case, this state of transition has coincided with a poorer than usual run of games — including losses to England, Spain and Germany late in 20222, and victories in recent months against (amongst others) the Republic of Ireland and Wales which were less convincing than expected.
From an English perspective, it does look odd that they are ranked behind two teams whose underlying performances they clearly bettered during last summer’s Euros3.
Germany and Sweden — second and third in FIFA’s latest rankings — respectively created 1.3 and 1.5 more expected goals per 90 minutes than their opponents in the tournament, while England’s xG difference was +1.9.
But it’s not all been positive for Wiegman’s side in the lead-up to the World Cup either.
For starters, a key trio of players from Euro 2022 — Leah Williamson, Fran Kirby and Beth Mead — will all miss this year’s tournament with injury.
And, in their final two games before heading to the World Cup, they lost to Australia 0-2 and drew 0-0 with Portugal — teams who sit 10th and 21st respectively in the latest rankings.
With the USWNT in a state of evolution and England neither fully fit nor firing, it would be remarkable if this edition of the World Cup is won in as dominant a fashion4 as the last.
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The FIFA rankings are calculated using a version of the Elo system.
They also beat Germany in a second fixture a few days after their loss.
Albeit with the benefit of home advantage.
The US recorded an xG difference of +2.3 per 90 minutes in the 2019 World Cup; next best were France at +1.6 and England at +1.4.