A number of our stars could be involved at next summer’s Women’s World Cup in France. Scroll down to find out who:
Danielle Carter, Beth Mead, Jordan Nobbs and Leah Williamson could all be in action for England. While Carter missed the qualifying campaign through injury, Mead, Nobbs and Williamson all played a part as the Lionesses topped their group with seven wins from eight games.
It was also a landmark campaign for Mead and Williamson, who won their full England caps. Williamson came on for the final six minutes of the Lionesses’ 3-1 win over Russia before starting the following game in Kazakhstan, while Mead marked her full debut in that game with two goals.
Lisa Evans, Kim Little and Emma Mitchell helped Scotland make history by topping their group to qualify for their first World Cup. Evans and Little scored five times between them as the Scots lost just one game, to Lia Walti’s Switzerland, to edge the qualifying favourites into the play-offs via a second-placed group-stage finish.
Walti and co overcame their first challenge by beating Belgium on away goals but they could not match the Netherlands, who won the play-off final 4-1 over two legs after a difficult group stage.
As reigning European champions, Oranje were the prize scalp in a group containing Katie McCabe and Louise Quinn’s Republic of Ireland, and they would ultimately pay for their final-day defeat to group rivals Norway, forcing them into the play-offs.
Vivianne Miedema had scored five group-stage goals, with Danielle van de Donk adding one of her own against Northern Ireland, and our striker was in form again in the final. After the Netherlands had convincingly beaten Denmark, Miedema scored in each leg of the play-off final against Switzerland to book her country’s place in France. Dominique Bloodworth and Sari van Veenendaal both featured prominently throughout the qualifying campaign.
Sweden’s qualifying campaign was much more routine. Despite missing the bulk of the group stage through injury, Jessica Samuelsson still played her part in the early stages of the process, helping Sweden pick up wins against Croatia and Hungary on their way to topping the group.
Germany had similar ease, cruising through a group containing Iceland, Czech Republic, Slovenia and the Faroe Islands. Tabea Kemme, not an Arsenal player until midway through their qualifying campaign, scored braces against Slovenia and the Faroe Islands before injury ruled her out. Now back in action at club level, she will be hoping to return to the national team in time for next summer’s tournament.
Pauline Peyraud-Magnin will also be hoping to be there. As World Cup hosts, France did not have to go through qualification, but have still shown fine form in their pre-tournament friendlies. Les Bleus have won their last seven games in a row and Peyraud-Magnin has been named in Corinne Diacre’s last two squads.
Full list of qualified nations below:
AFC (five teams): Australia, China, Japan, South Korea, Thailand
CAF (three teams): TBD
CONCACAF (three teams): Canada, Jamaica, United States
CONMEBOL (three teams): Argentina, Brazil, Chile
OFC (one team): TBD
UEFA (nine teams): England, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Scotland, Spain, Sweden
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