FIFA Women's World Cup: Group Stages Roundup

 

With the Group Stages now already over it is time to take stock and take note of what has happened so far at this thrilling tournament.

Teams with prior form and heritage at women's football such as Germany, China, Brazil and Italy are all already out.

Plucky co-hosts New Zealand fell but the other host Australia is through.

The game's most dominant force USA has just scraped through. Their best  hope for a goal and arguably best player, Alex Morgan, now at her fourth World Cup, and usually a goal scoring machine, has been quite harmless.

The other star players of 2019 have either retired (Ellen White of England) or are now without the pace that they once relied upon (Rapino of the USA and Marta of Brazil).

However, France's Wendie Renard is still very useful. A defensive player and also a match winner as she proved by drifting in unmarked to head home a corner.

Overall though it has been the end of the old guard and a new set of start players will hopefully emerge - and that, in a nutshell, has been so great about the tournament so far.  An unpredictable and refreshing change.

The current champions USA were magnificent in 2019, albeit lucky at times, that semi-final with England could easily have gone England's way. But their over confidence and ruthlessness whilst celebrated at home, was often perceived a brashness elsewhere.  

The USA has simply not brought through anyone to replace the now veterans Morgan and Rapino, whilst another source of goals Christen Press misses the World Cup with an ACL injury. But with strength in depth,  vast experience and proven nerve for the big-time, can they now turn on the style and turn their fortunes around? You'd be naive to write them off yet, but.....

England, champions of Europe have played brilliantly and the question is 'could they do it this year?'

France look strong and Jamaica and Morocco are the surprise packages so far.

This year, for the first time in memory, it feels as though the cup could be anyone's.

So, let's see how well we have been able to predict the unpredictable so far. As usual we made predictions on all scores and compared with a control test - the random dice - then see how we all did vs. the actual results.

To keep it brief we will for now simply compare predictions of final group standings, with a more detailed analysis due once the tournament has completed:

Table: Group A

Actual	AG	KT	Random
Switzerland	Norway	Norway	Switzerland
Norway	New Zealand	Switzerland	Philippines
New Zealand	Switzerland	New Zealand	New Zealand
Philippines	Philippines	Philippines	Norway

 

Table: Group B

Actual	AG	KT	Random
Australia	Australia	Canada	Canada
Nigeria	Canada	Australia	Australia
Canada	Rep of Ireland	Nigeria	Nigeria
Rep of Ireland	Nigeria	Rep of Ireland	Rep of Ireland

 

 Table: Group C 

Actual	AG	KT	Random
Japan	Japan	Spain	Costa Rica
Spain	Spain	Japan	Spain
Zambia	Zambia	Costa Rica	Japan
Costa Rica	Costa Rica	Zambia	Zambia

 

Table: Group D

Actual	AG	KT	Random
England	England	China	China
Denmark	China	England	Denmark
China	Denmark	Denmark	England
Haiti	Haiti	Haiti	Haiti

 

 Table: Group E

Actual	AG	KT	Random
Netherlands	USA	USA	Vietnam
USA	Netherlands	Netherlands	USA
Portugal	Portugal	Portugal	Netherlands
Vietnam	Vietnam	Vietnam	Portugal

 

Table: Group F

Actual	AG	KT	Random
France	Brazil	Brazil	Jamaica
Jamaica	France	France	France
Brazil	Jamaica	Panama	Brazil
Panama	Panama	Jamaica	Panama

 

Table: Group G

Actual	AG	KT	Random
Sweden	Argentina	Sweden	Italy
South Africa	Sweden	Argentina	South Africa
Italy	Italy	Italy	Argentina
Argentina	South Africa	South Africa	Sweden

 

 Table: Group H

Actual	AG	KT	Random
Colombia	South Korea	Germany	Morocco
Morocco	Germany	Colombia	Colombia
Germany	Colombia	South Korea	South Korea
South Korea	Morocco	Morocco	Germany