So far the following teams have qualified Hosts 1: France UEFA 4: Germany, Netherlands, Spain, England AFC: 3 CONCACAF: 3 CONMEBOL: 2 CAF: 2 OFC: 1 New Zealand
I suddenly remembered about Nicollete Ageva. you know, guys, the girl who had scored the only ever goal for Papua New Guinea in an international competition at U-20 WWC 2016 (in the game vs Korea DPR! ). I wanted to check if she had kept playing and scoring for her team. Apparently she had some problems in joining the team, because she's native of Bouganville, an island that had difficult relations with Papua New Guinea and even tried to secede through a war some years ago. But after those problems were solved and she could train with the team, she indeed played and scored! According to Wiki, she scored 7 goals in 5 matches of OFC qualifiers: this wasn't enough for PNG to get second place behind New Zealand, because they lost a deciding match vs Fiji by 3-2, and wasn't enough either for a podium in the scorers' rankings of the tournament (Ageva was only 4th, behind some Kiwis who shore up their numbers with multiple 12-0 and 9-1 wins ), but I guess it's anyway an impressive achievement for a team and a player that, until last December, were nowhere to be seen in the map of international women's football. This interesting interview with Ageva was made between the harsh loss vs New Zealand and the large win vs New Caledonia.
The four hosts cities have been selected : Concarneau (Finistère, Stade Guy-Piriou), Dinan/Léhon (Côtes-d'Armor, Stade du Clos Gastel de Léhon), Saint-Malo (Ille-et-Vilaine, Stade Marville) et Vannes (Morbihan, Stade de la Rabine). And to be honest, these are small capacity stadiums up to 7 000. I am quite puzzled by this choice as the France games will sell out very quickly.
The Stade de La Rabine in Vannes will have the opening game and the final. According to wikipedia the capacity is 6 080 seats and 9 500 overall, that is really small. @FIFAWWC Le logo de la #WWC U20 dévoilé avec une identité bretonne ! pic.twitter.com/cfvs3VxnhS— Ligue de Bretagne de Football (@LBFoff) September 22, 2017 #FIFAWWC #FIFAWWCU20 @MGriedge @ELS_9_FRANCE @cam10abily23 ambassadrices de la Coupe du Monde U20 2018 pic.twitter.com/YFD98Wol7H— footofeminin (@footofeminin) September 22, 2017 #FIFAWWC #FIFAWWCU20 Vannes accueillera le match d'ouverture le 5 août 2018 et la finale le 24 août 2018 @vannes— footofeminin (@footofeminin) September 22, 2017 #FIFAWWC #France2019 Les dates : 5 au 13 août: phase de poules. 2 matchs par stade et par jourQuarts : 16 et 17/08. Demies : 20/08 à Vannes— footofeminin (@footofeminin) September 22, 2017 #FIFAWWC #France2019 Finale et match pour la 3e place le 24 août à Vannes pic.twitter.com/dMPwdnQxiq— footofeminin (@footofeminin) September 22, 2017
Hosts 1: France UEFA 4: Germany, Netherlands, Spain, England AFC: Korea DPR, Japan and Australia or China CONCACAF: 3 CONMEBOL: 2 CAF: 2 OFC: 1 New Zealand
Hosts 1: France UEFA 4: Germany, Netherlands, Spain, England AFC: Korea DPR, Japan, China CONCACAF: 3 CONMEBOL: 2 CAF: 2 OFC: 1 New Zealand Just to add on the stadium capacity as per the FFF - stade Guy-Piriou (Concarneau, 6 500 places). - stade du Clos Gastel (Dinan-Léhon, 2 000 places de capacité visée). - stade Marville (Saint-Malo, 2 887 places). - stade de la Rabine (Vannes, 9 000 places). I amazed by those grounds at 2 000 and 2 887 capacity only.
Assuming the USA qualifies, the top seeds should be France, North Korea, Japan & United States. Pot B will be the Euros: England, Netherlands, Germany & Spain. Pot C the CONCACAF/CONMEBOL qualifiers & Pot D would be China, New Zealand & the African qualifiers.
Group stage games and quarter-finals will be sold as double headers with games at 3/4pm and 6/7pm. Here are the distance between the 4 Cities used for the tournament Vannes -> Concarneau 107 km Vannes -> Dinan 118 km Vannes -> St Malo 150 km Dinan -> St Malo 33 km St Malo -> Concarneau 230 km
Please, remind me of when the draw will take place. Edit: nevermind, I scrolled up some posts and it appears it's the 8th of March.
qualified teams Hosts 1: France UEFA 4: Germany, Netherlands, Spain, England AFC: Korea DPR, Japan, China CONCACAF: USA, Mexico + Canada/Haiti CONMEBOL: 2 CAF: 2 OFC: 1 New Zealand
qualified teams Hosts 1: France UEFA 4: Germany, Netherlands, Spain, England AFC: Korea DPR, Japan, China CONCACAF: USA, Mexico + Canada/Haiti CONMEBOL: 2 CAF: Nigeria, Ghana OFC: 1 New Zealand
Lol, won't happen. Or, at least, seems very unlikely. Yes, the results of the semifinals suggest Haiti could be a little better than it seemed and Canada could be a little worse, but at group-stage the same game had anyway ended with a resounding 4-0 for Canada. You could object that by then Haiti and Canada were both already qualified, so Haiti probably didn't even try, saving energies for the subsequent matches instead, but I keep not believing the big upset can happen...
All 16 qualified teams Hosts 1: France UEFA: Germany, Netherlands, Spain, England AFC: Korea DPR, Japan, China CONCACAF: USA, Mexico, Haiti CONMEBOL: Brazil, Paraguay CAF: Nigeria, Ghana OFC: New Zealand
For records: I already covered my head in ashes for this unfortunate prediction on the CONCACAF U-20 Championship's thread!
Suggested pots: Pot A: France, North Korea, Japan & United States. Pot B(Euros): England, Netherlands, Germany & Spain. Pot C: Mexico, Haiti, Brazil, Paraguay. Pot D: China, New Zealand, Ghana, Nigeria.
What are the typical criteria for pots at U20? I would've suspected Mexico more likely to be in pot A than USA due to winning Concacaf tournament.
Seeding for the 2016 U-20 World Cup Draw was based on historical performance of each nation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_FIFA_U-20_Women's_World_Cup#Draw Somehow, both European champion and sub-champion went into last pot #4. I expect Netherlands and Haiti to be in pot #4, as their 1st appearances in this tournament.