#SWNT will travel to La Manga to face Norway and Iceland in January as we prepare for the #FIFAWWC February will also see @Kerr5Shelley's side take part in the prestigious Algarve Cup for the first time since 2002.➡️ Read more: https://t.co/4E5p1LDQFp #OurGirlsOurGame pic.twitter.com/u1DwjRyrWi— Scotland National Team (@ScotlandNT) December 6, 2018
You do wonder who will take part at the Cyprus Cup, with the Algarve, the Sheba Cup and the Pinatar Cup. also in play and France maybe looking at hosting a mini-tournament.
Really? I hadn't heard anything about it. Insider info? Meanwhile, one of the members of our Nadeshiko Japan thread had already booked a travel in Portugal for Algarve Cup and just discovered that Japan will play SheBelieves Cup instead!
The idea had arisen last year when the France staff said they wouldn't come back to the Sheba Cup. No news about the friendlies because all the teams are waiting for the WC draw to finalise their program.
Algarve Cup, only about half the probable teams are known so far - Portugal, Scotland, Netherlands, Switzerland, Denmark and Spain, reportedly. And Norway and Sweden are more than likely to confirm. The rest depends on what France and the other top teams decide to do.
Canada's coach said before the World Cup draw that they were planning to take part - "There are four FIFA international breaks before the tournament and Heiner-Moller plans to use all of them, including a return to the Algarve Cup in Portugal." (National Post)
Apparently those are the teams: CANADA CHINA DENMARK ICELAND NORWAY NETHERLANDS PORTUGAL RUSSIA SCOTLAND SPAIN SWITZERLAND SWEDEN
Quite an open line-up, if you ask me. I see many teams that could win this edition, on a good day for them, and no-one seems clearly the favourite, not even Canada that's the only seeded team at WWC in this tournament.
Poland will play in Algarve Cup. According to Polish FA other teams are: Portugal, Denmark, Scotland, Canada, Sweden, Norway, Spain, Netherlands, China, Iceland and Switzerland. Supposedly tournament will have different rules from last one. (only three games).
As a fan of The Netherlands, I hope they play Spain, Sweden or China as they've played Denmark, Switzerland and Norway a lot recently. The Dutch badly need to see some different teams. They really need to play some better teams, but i'm not sure they're in the Algarve, frankly.
If they go with standard rules (4 teams in group) trying to avoid recent qual. matches repeat: Poland, Scotland and Switzerland were in 2nd WWCQ group Norway and Netherlands were in 3rd WWCQ group Sweden and Denmark in 4th WWCQ group also Netherlands and Switzerland recently played each other in WWCQ play-offs other: Canada, Netherlands and China were in the same WWC 2015 group. it could look something like this: ......A................B...................C........ Canada....Netherlands......Sweden Norway...........Spain............China (China and Norway could switch places) Denmark....Scotland......Switzerland Poland........ Iceland..........Portugal
Group A Canada (5.º), Iceland (22.º), Scotland (20.º) Group B Spain (12.º), Netherlands (7.º), Poland (34.º) Group C Norway (13.º), Denmark (17.º), China (15.º) Group D Sweden (9.º), Switzerland (18.º), Portugal (32.º)
The group matches will start on Wed 27 February with Canada v Iceland, Spain v Netherlands, Denmark v Norway, and Sweden v Switzerland. Wed 6 March is final day. - https://www.womenssoccerunited.com/algarve-cup-2019-match-fixtures/