USA Women’s Win World Cup 2015
Women’s World Cup Final: USA vs. Japan – FIFA Women’s World Cup 2015 Highlights
2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup
The 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup was the seventh FIFA Women’s World Cup, the quadrennial international women’s football world championship tournament. In March 2011, Canada won the right to host the event, the first time the country would host the tournament and the third time it has been held in North America. Matches were played in six cities across Canada in five time zones. The tournament began on 6 June 2015, and finished with the finals on 5 July 2015 with a United States victory over Japan.
The 2015 tournament saw the World Cup expanded to 24 teams from 16 in 2011. Canada’s team received direct entry as host and a qualification tournament of 134 teams was held for the remaining 23 places. With the expanded tournament, eight teams made their Women’s World Cup debut. All previous Women’s World Cup finalists qualified for the tournament, with defending champions Japan and returning champions Germany (2003, 2007) and the United States (1991, 1999) among the seeded teams.
The 2015 tournament used goal-line technology for the first time with the Hawk-Eye system. It is also the first Women’s World Cup to be played on artificial turf. There were some initial concerns over a possible increased risk of injuries from playing on artificial turf, but a legal challenge suggesting matches should be played on grass as in similar men’s tournaments was dropped in January 2015.
Host Selection
The bidding for each FIFA Women’s World Cup typically includes hosting rights for the previous year’s FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup (similar to the men’s version, in which the host nation stages the Confederations Cup the year before). Bids for the tournament were required to be submitted by December 2010. Only two bids were submitted:
Canada Canada
Zimbabwe Zimbabwe (withdrawn)
Zimbabwe withdrew its bid on 1 March 2011. The country was seen as a long shot as its women’s team was ranked 103rd in the world at the time of the bid and has never qualified for a Women’s World Cup. There is also ongoing political and economic instability in the country.
Qualification – 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup qualification
Qualified
Did not qualify
Did not enter
Women’s team inactive
For 2015, the number of qualifying teams grew from 16 to 24 and scheduled matches increased from 32 to 52. On 11 June 2012, FIFA announced a change to the allocation of the qualifying berths for its continental confederations. The FIFA Executive Committee approved the following slot allocation and the distribution of eight new slots:
AFC (Asia): 5 slots (up from 3)
CAF (Africa): 3 slots (up from 2)
CONCACAF (North, Central America and Caribbean): 3.5 slots (up from 2.5)
CONMEBOL (South America): 2.5 slots (up from 2)
OFC (Oceania): 1 slot (same as 2011)
UEFA (Europe): 8 slots (up from 4.5)
Host Nation: 1 slot (same as 2011)
After North Korea had several players test positive for performance-enhancing drugs during the 2011 FIFA Women’s World Cup, FIFA banned the North Korean team from participating in the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup in Canada. This was the first time a women’s team had been banned from a Women’s World Cup, and it was the first time since 1995 that North Korea did not participate in a Women’s World Cup.
Qualified Teams
The latest published FIFA Rankings prior to the tournament (March 2015) are shown in brackets.
AFC (5)
Australia (10)
China PR (16)
Japan (4)
South Korea (18)
Thailand (29)
CAF (3)
Cameroon (53)
Ivory Coast (67)
Nigeria (33)
CONCACAF (4)
Canada (8) (hosts)
Costa Rica (37)
Mexico (25)
United States (2)
CONMEBOL (3)
Brazil (7)
Colombia (28)
Ecuador (48)
OFC (1)
New Zealand (17)
UEFA (8)
England (6)
France (3)
Germany (1)
Netherlands (12)
Norway (11)
Spain (14)
Sweden (5)
Switzerland (19)
