The Matildas will spend the entirety of next year’s Women’s World Cup on Australia’s eastern seaboard, regardless of how they fare on the pitch, with the identity of their Group B opponents and their potential knockout-stage foes to be revealed in a matter of days.
The draw for the tournament is to be conducted on Saturday (5.30pm AEDT) in Auckland, where hundreds of foreign VIPs, FIFA executives and retired greats of the women’s game will converge for one of the biggest milestones on the road to the showpiece event.
Sam Kerr and the Matildas will find out on Saturday who’s in their group for next year’s World Cup.Credit:Getty
With each confederation’s qualifying process now complete, all bar three of the 32 teams who will compete at the World Cup will be drawn from four pots based on their current FIFA rankings, and then divided across eight groups – an increase from the six-group, 24-team format last seen at France 2019.
New Zealand and Australia have already been locked in as the first teams in groups A and B respectively, with their status as joint hosts landing them in pot 1 and a more favourable draw than their rankings would otherwise deserve.
It means Tony Gustavsson’s Matildas will avoid an early battle with any of the world’s top six teams – the United States, Sweden, Germany, England, France or Spain – at least until after the group phase. However, given their precarious form and the calibre of some of the teams in pot 2, including Norway and Italy, who both beat them at the last World Cup, there is no easy pathway ahead.
The only other teams Australia definitely cannot face in Group B are fellow Asian confederation sides Japan, China and South Korea (pot 2), Vietnam (pot 3) and Alen Stajcic’s Philippines (pot 4), while the three remaining spots in the draw will be determined by a novel 10-team play-in tournament to be staged in New Zealand in February.
FIFA’s top brass, including secretary-general Fatma Samoura and president Gianni Infantino, are en route to Auckland for the draw.Credit:Getty
No matter what happens, the Matildas will spend the whole World Cup not only in Australia, but within the country’s three most populous states: NSW, Victoria and Queensland. Their three group stage matches will be played at the new Allianz Stadium in Sydney, Brisbane’s Suncorp Stadium and AAMI Park in Melbourne; beyond that, there are only two possible roads to the final.
If they finish first in the group, Australia will play a round-of-16 clash at Accor Stadium, and then, if victorious, a quarter-final at Suncorp – and if they come second, it’ll be the inverse, Suncorp then Accor. The two semis will take place at Auckland’s Eden Park and the 83,500-seat Accor Stadium, which also has the final on August 20.
It’s a handy schedule that reduces the travel burden as much as possible for the Matildas, but it means that fans based elsewhere will have to travel interstate to catch a glimpse of skipper Sam Kerr and her teammates in their quest for a World Cup win on home soil.
The venues and timings were settled based on the level of state government support offered and commitments made through the bidding process. Like in the 2015 men’s Asian Cup – where the only match played in Melbourne past the group stage was a quarter-final between South Korea and Uzbekistan – the Victorian capital will miss out on the business end of another major tournament, with only two round-of-16 fixtures to be played at AAMI Park, neither involving the Matildas, and nothing beyond that.
Optimism levels for Australia’s prospects have risen ever so slightly after friendly wins over South Africa and Denmark last week, with Football Australia endorsing Swede Gustavsson as the right coach to take the Matildas into this historic opportunity despite disquiet among fans and ex-players over his methods and the team’s track record during his two-year reign.
“One thing for certain, is that our team will be well-prepared for whatever the draw reveals,” Football Australia chief executive James Johnson said.
“Over the last two years, we have employed a deliberate strategy to play as many top-10 teams and to expose our team to as many different playing styles as possible. We still have a number of international windows available to us and are working on some premium match-ups which will be announced in the near future.”
Tickets for the Women’s World Cup went on sale to the public last week, and organisers said more were sold on one day than through the entire first week of sales for the last edition in France.
As for Kerr, she will find out on Tuesday morning (AEDT) whether her fourth nomination for the Ballon d’Or will prove successful.
POTS FOR THE WOMEN’S WORLD CUP DRAW
Pot 1: New Zealand, Australia, United States, Sweden, Germany, England, France, Spain
Pot 2: Canada, Netherlands, Brazil, Japan, Norway, Italy, China, South Korea
Pot 3: Denmark, Switzerland, Republic of Ireland, Colombia, Argentina, Vietnam, Costa Rica, Jamaica
Pot 4: Nigeria, Philippines, South Africa, Morocco, Zambia, winners of play-off groups A, B and C (to be determined February 2023)
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