FIFA Women's World Cup

Women World Cup At a Glance


Founded- 1991
Region- International (FIFA)
Number of teams- 16 (Finals)
Current champions- Germany
Most successful team- Germany & United States
Website- Official webpage

The FIFA Women's World Cup is recognized as the most important International competition in women's football and is played amongst women's national football teams of the member states of FIFA, the sport's global governing body. Contested every four years, the first Women's World Cup tournament, named the Women's World Championship, was held in 1991, sixty-one years after the men's first FIFA World Cup tournament in 1930. The current format has sixteen teams competing every four years for the winner's trophy.

History of Women's World Cup

The tournament was originally the brainchild of the then FIFA president João Havelange. The inaugural tournament was hosted in China in 1991, with twelve teams sent to represent their countries. The 1995 FIFA Women's World Cup was held in Sweden with twelve teams. Over 660,000 spectators attended the 1999 FIFA Women's World Cup in the United States,and nearly one billion viewers from seventy countries tuned in to watch sixteen countries fight for the title.[citation needed] The United States and Germany have won the championship twice, and Norway once. Germany is the two-time defending champion.

In the 1999 edition, one of the most famous moments of the tournament was American defender Brandi Chastain's victory celebration after scoring the Cup-winning penalty shot against China. She took off her jersey and waved it over her head (as men frequently do), showing her muscular torso and sports bra as she celebrated. The 1999 final in the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California had an attendance of 90,185, a world record for a women's sporting event.

The 1999 and 2003 Women's World Cups were both held in the United States; in 2003 China was supposed to host it but the tournament was moved because of SARS. As compensation, China retained its automatic qualification to the 2003 tournament as host nation and was automatically chosen to host the 2007 FIFA Women's World Cup. Germany will host the 2011 FIFA Women's World Cup, as decided by vote in October 2007. The 2015 event is currently being contested between Canada and Chile.

At the 2007 World Cup in China, U.S. captain Kristine Lilly competed in her fifth World Cup, making her the only woman and one of three players in history to appear in five World Cups.

Format

The participants qualify through the regional football confederations of Oceania (OFC), Europe (UEFA), North America, Central America and the Caribbean (CONCACAF), South America (CONMEBOL), Asia (AFC) and Africa (CAF).

The competition takes place over the course of three weeks. In the group stage, 16 teams seeded into four groups (A,B,C, and D) compete against each other in a round-robin tournament. After Germany trounced Argentina 11–0 in the opening game of the 2007 World Cup, FIFA president Sepp Blatter conceded that the one-sided match was "not good for the game" and was something that FIFA would consider in deciding whether or not to expand the group phase to 24 teams.On 3 December 2009, FIFA has decided to expand the women's World Cup to 24 teams for 2015.

In the knockout phase, the top two teams from each group advance to the quarterfinals, a single-elimination tournament in which teams play each other in one-off matches, with extra time and penalty shootouts used to decide the winner if necessary. The winner of Group A plays the runner-up of Group B, The winner of Group B plays the runner-up of Group A, etc.

The winners of the four quarterfinal games move on to the semifinal matches, which determine the contestants for the championship game. The losing semifinalists compete to determine third place.

Tournaments

Year - Host -         Final Champion  - Score  - Second Place

1991  China           United States         2–1        Norway

1995  Sweden        Norway                2–0        Germany

1999 United States United States         5–4        China PR

2003 United States Germany                2–1        Sweden(Match decided on golden goal)

2007 China             Germany               2–0         Brazil

2011 Germany

Awards

- Adidas Golden Ball

- Adidas Golden Shoe

- FIFA Fair Play Award


Records and statistics(Overall top goalscorers)

14 goals - Birgit Prinz

12 goals - Michelle Akers

11 goals - Sun Wen & Bettina Wiegmann

10 goals - Ann Kristin Aarønes & Marta & Heidi Mohr

9 goals - Linda Medalen & Hege Riise & Abby Wambach

8 goals - Liu Ailing & Mia Hamm & Kristine Lilly & Marianne Pettersen

7 goals - Tiffeny Milbrett & Sissi


FIFA Women's World Cup winning captains and managers

Year       Captain                  Head coach       Team

1991       April Heinrichs       Anson Dorrance USA

1995       Heidi Støre            Even Pellerud     Norway

1999       Carla Overbeck     Tony DiCicco    USA

2003        Bettina Wiegmann Tina Theune       Germany

2007        Birgit Prinz             Silvia Neid         Germany