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Road to Australia/New Zealand


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Draw will be next week on Saturday Oct 22nd. You'll need to stay up or wake up in the middle of the night to watch it live on TSN 1 & 3 starting at 0220 EDT and ending at 0400. 

The latest FIFA rankings are out which left Canada missing Pot 1 by 0.43 to Spain. The win over the US for Spain B by 2 nil helped them move into Pot 1.

There aren't really any teams in Pot 3 & 4 that Canada needs to avoid. At worst, Switzerland, Argentina & Colombia will be hard to break down. So, it's all about getting New Zealand from Pot 1 while avoiding England & Spain.

 

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2 hours ago, red card said:

At worst, Switzerland, Argentina & Colombia will be hard to break down...

No mention of Denmark? I still think they are a stronger team than Argentina.

Obviously Vietnam would be the dream opponent from Pot 3.

I'd take facing Morocco again over any of the three unknown teams.

Edited by Olympique_de_Marseille
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13 hours ago, Olympique_de_Marseille said:

No mention of Denmark? I still think they are a stronger team than Argentina.

Obviously Vietnam would be the dream opponent from Pot 3.

I'd take facing Morocco again over any of the three unknown teams.

I was disappointed with Denmark at the Euros. I thought a team with Pernille Harder would be more interesting to watch. The Swiss were better but then barely scraped by a not so good Wales team in the World Cup qualifiers. Portugal looks to be on a faster development pathway and should be one of the 3 qualifiers from the inter-continental playoffs. 

I believe South American teams have the biggest upside since 90% of Conmebol members haven't bothered with women's football. Colombia has some young talent emerging. They made it to the quarters at the recent u20 World Cup and made this summer's Copa America final. Linda Caicedo is a potential star that is captaining the current u17 team in India, played at the u20 World Cup and was named best player at Copa America. They're also the most supported team by fans amongst Conmebol after Brasil.

Argentina doesn't have same level of talent emerging but their tactical & mental acumen have advanced markedly. Chile & Paraguay also have a good chance to qualify.

 

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https://theathletic.com/3704486/2022/10/19/womens-world-cup-2023-draw-facts/

The World Cup draw is in New Zealand tomorrow, the 23rd, 7:30pm local time. That is 2:30am EST and 11:30 the 22nd PST.

We are in Pot 2 and can't draw the US from Pot 1. We clearly prefer to draw New Zealand and then even Australia over any of the UEFA reps or Brazil left.

From Pot 3 teams to avoid are also UEFA teams like Denmark, the rest we should be able to handle. As there are UEFA teams in the first three pots, we could easily end up facing one from POT 3 as many groups may already have the two maximum from Pots 1 and 2. We avoid Concacaf opponents in Pot 3.

The Athletic says our hardest possible group would be Sweden, Denmark and Nigeria from Pot 4. We might imagine an easy group being New Zealand, Vietnam and one of the playoff winners.

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Draw will be live on one of the free-to-air commercial channels here in Australia in less than half an hour. Hoping for us to draw F2 or H2 so I can see us live here in Melbourne. Otherwise, I'll have to start looking at traveling. Hope we don't get A, C, E, or G, 'cause that'll mean having to go to NZ.

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46 minutes ago, Soro17 said:

Mixed feelings on this group. Dodged the big pot A teams, but got the stronger of the hosts, plus the strongest pot D team. Happy to get Ireland though. 

SthMelbRed, will be in Melbourne next week. How is the flood situation? 

Unless you're going to travel to regional Victoria, or a very few suburbs in the west of the city, no issues with the floods locally. I'm in the inner-southeastern suburbs, and we haven't been affected, at all. It didn't even rain that hard here for very long on the worst days. A couple of friends on the other side of town got away with close calls, though.

Are you coming for the racing carnival?

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Canada will need to finish first to avoid England in the R16. Canada is in the tougher side of bracket as they'll likely need then to go through Germany, France and/or Brasil and travel more than the NZL based groups.

All winnable group matches but Canada has never defeated Nigeria in 2 World Cup matches and the u20 team lost to Nigeria 3-1 at this summer's u20 World Cup. Match against Australia will need overcoming 52k crowd and hoping the Matildas don't find their form by next summer. Canada also has a long travel leg to Perth to play Ireland and back to Melbourne to play Australia (coming from Brisbane).

England & USA (especially if Portugal qualifies) have the toughest groups based on rankings. Canada's group is third most difficult.

The Aussies think they got a nightmare draw or Group of Death. Only having Denmark rather than Ireland could have been worse.

https://www.theroar.com.au/2022/10/23/matildas-landed-in-group-of-death-as-world-cup-draw-revealed/

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/sport/football/womens-world-cup-draw-tough-group-awaits-matildas/news-story/a455b79f378e4ecd72a419019f4c287e

 

Edited by red card
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There are only 2 groups where there's a clear favourite to win it cleanly, Germany's and the Sweden group.

Then maybe Norway. The US seem to be slipping and Netherlands play them tough. The rest have at least two strong teams. 

Our group is the most evenly balanced, we're favourites but any team could beat any other.

England, Denmark and China makes a hard group.

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Canada's match times are now known. Time zones conversion via soccerway as Australian cities vary in using DST.

Nigeria match will be Thursday July 20 2230 EDT.

Ireland match will be Wednesday July 26 0600 EDT.

Australia match will be Monday July 31 0600 EDT

https://digitalhub.fifa.com/m/2c8301d5ae03b60/original/Match-Schedule-FIFA-Women-s-World-Cup-Australia-New-Zealand-2023.pdf

https://ca.women.soccerway.com/international/world/womens-world-cup/2023/group-stage/r55087/

Edited by red card
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So, as expected, Canada's 3rd group game, against the Matildas, has sold out. If anybody comes across a spare in the away section, or anywhere in the ground, really, between now and kick-off, let me know. The opening group game, against Nigeria, has been given a ridiculous kick-off time of 12:30 pm. Looks like I'll be taking the day off work for that one. At least it's in our winter, so midday heat won't be a thing to worry about.

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5 hours ago, Olympique_de_Marseille said:

Surely the CSA has a ticket allocation?

I hope so. The team-specific tickets went on sale a couple of weeks ago, but I didn't buy then. I wouldn't have been able to take a couple of weeks off to go watch in NZ if the draw had gone that way, so I waited. I'm definitely in for the Nigeria game, and I'll move heaven and earth to get in somehow for the final group game, as well.

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