If there were concerns about blowouts when the Women’s World Cup expanded to 32 teams this year, minnows Haiti, Jamaica and Ireland have served notice they deserve to be on the game’s biggest stage.
Image: Reuters
“We’ve arrived at the point where we’ve improved significantly enough to where we can go on the pitch and believe that we can win.” Despite eight teams making their World Cup debut this year, the storyline in Australia and New Zealand has been far more about the pleasant surprises. “There are good players coming through the ranks now and I think once upon a time the U.S. was very, very dominant. And you can see the gap is closing,” said Jamaica coach Lorne Donaldson.TONE SET
A study by players union FIFPRO found that Haiti played less than a third of the number games that the U.S. did in their World Cup preparations, and less than half as many as England. FIFPRO also found that nearly a third of World Cup players were not paid for qualification games, and two-thirds of 362 players surveyed had to take leave from another form of employment to participate in qualifying.
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