Add Category
No matter who lifts the Women's World Cup trophy on August 20, the overarching story of this tournament has been that football's emerging nations have begun to seriously challenge its more established powers.
For the first time in Women's World Cup history, the first knock-out stage of the 2023 tournament will feature three teams from Africa: Nigeria, Morocco, and South Africa.
The Caribbean has delivered its first qualifier in Jamaica, and South America has seen World Cup veterans Brazil replaced by a youthful, exciting Colombia.
The rise of these teams has subsequently meant the fall of others.
Alongside Brazil, Germany — who reached the final of the 2022 Women's European Championships and were tipped to reclaim their World Cup crown this year — were bundled out at the group stage, as were Olympic gold medallists Canada.
And while some bigger teams like the USA, Spain, the Netherlands, France, England, and Norway all made it through to the round of 16, there were a number of hiccups along the way, with none of them looking particularly comfortable as they battled through unexpectedly tricky groups.
But how, exactly, did this happen? What has changed in the past four years to deliver such surprising results?
FIFA's Technical Study Group (TSG), led by former USA head coach Jill Ellis and containing some of the world's greatest football minds, such as German legend Nadine Angerer, Wales manager Gemma Grainger, and former Brisbane Roar coach Belinda Wilson, has offered some early theories.
Having watched and analysed every game of the tournament so far, the TSG have already noticed some significant trends, particularly from the lower-ranked teams in how they manage games against more favoured opponents.
On average, teams have become more compact — especially through the middle of the field — which has made it more difficult for opponents to break through lines, create chances, and score goals.
The consequence is that the overall number of goals scored per game so far has decreased from 2.94 to 2.63 since 2019, while the number of draws has increased from 8 per cent to 21 per cent.
Additionally, newer and lower-ranked teams are scoring goals earlier in games than they used to — an increase of 18 per cent since the last World Cup — which, when combined with their advanced defensive compactness, has made it harder for 'bigger' teams to come from behind to win games.
"I think we all feel it, we all see it," Ellis said.
"We hear this constant comment about gaps — where are the gaps? And is the gap closing? — but we can honestly say that there aren't gaps [anymore].
"On any given day, a team can come out here and be competitive against another team. So it's going to be incredibly exciting to see how this plays out."
The narrowness of teams at this World Cup has meant that goals have had to come through other avenues. Wide areas and corners have become particularly fruitful in that respect, with the TSG finding that the midfield compactness has forced teams to use the field's wider channels to engineer goal-scoring opportunities.
While the number of overall crosses has gone down, the number of goals scored from those crosses — both in the air and along the ground — has gone up, which suggests that the average quality of those balls from wider areas has increased.
Further, there's been an increase in the number of teams who create player overloads in those wide areas, deliberately committing more players to a certain area of the field in order to out-number the opposition, allowing them to manipulate and create space for team-mates to exploit elsewhere.
Corners have become a particular weapon for attacking teams, especially in-swinging corners that are delivered close to the goal-mouth. The quality and consistency of in-swinging corners has increased, with goals scored at both the front and the back post as a result.
The reduced number of overall goals is also down to improvements to goalkeeping.
The save percentage for goalkeepers has increased from 70 per cent to 77 per cent since 2019, while the number of punches goalkeepers have made has gone up from 2.5 to 3.8 per game, which is attributed to the improved positioning, technique, and decision-making of the individuals to read the play and react in the moment.
So these are the on-field trends that the TSG has observed, but Ellis puts a lot of these developments down to the off-field improvements that have happened around the world.
"There are federations taking this very seriously," she said.
"Last year, I was in Morocco and went to see their National Training Centre, and I was blown away by this facility; it's one of the nicest I've ever seen.
"We've got Haiti that has had a residency program. What FIFA are doing is they're having workshops with confederations.
"What I'm also keenly aware of is you take a team like Jamaica, that made it to the last World Cup, the profile of the sport and the profile of their players takes a massive bounce in their own country.
"FIFA gave $960,000 to each [qualified] team so that they can play friendlies.
"So I think it's a combination of investment, of awareness, and focus."
There is perhaps an element of surprise that has come with the rapid rise of some of these nations over the past four years, particularly those from outside Europe and North America.
Indeed, the fact that higher-ranked nations rarely play teams from outside their own confederations in between major tournaments is perhaps why some have struggled when coming up against unfamiliar sides from Africa, Asia, South America, or the Caribbean.
Ellis described this World Cup as "the knock-on effect" of improvements off the field, particularly at club level, where more full-time professional opportunities and environments have been created in women's football since the 2019 tournament.
In addition to developing physically, the rise of club football as the primary place of player development has seen players and coaches learning to become more technically proficient and tactically flexible, with teams throughout the group stage having shown multiple structural approaches depending on the opponent or the in-game situation.
One of the clearest examples is Japan, who defeated Spain 4-0 despite having just 22 per cent possession, just a week after defeating Costa Rica 2-0 with 57 per cent possession.
"Teams have a tactical plan now and they really focus in on what their strengths are," Grainger said.
"It's not so much about having possession of the ball as a strength; it's about 'what are our strengths if we can attack quickly?'
"We've seen it with Jamaica: they're out-of-possession strategy. There's a real resilience, a real discipline, a real control to not have the ball for that amount of time.
"But then to be able to see the game out physically — not to concede in the later stages of the game — the overall tactical development has been a really fascinating subject for us to see so far.
"The physical development, the technical development, the tactical development of players and teams ... it really is the overall investment into the game, and that's at an international level and a domestic level across the world."
Ellis echoed Grainer's observations, saying that the rapid rise of club football and the opportunities that has given players from across the globe — but especially to those from lower-ranked nations — has made for one of the most open Women's World Cups in history.
"If I'm candid, I really am surprised [by some of the results]," Ellis said. "When you suddenly see a Germany or a Brazil get knocked out of a World Cup in the group stage, I don't think any of us could have predicted that.
"I was thinking that one more iteration of the World Cup before we started to see even more parity that we're starting to see right now.
"The level of coaching has added a level of sophistication that, if you can keep teams tight, you're always in with a chance, right? With a penalty kick or a set piece or a quick transition.
"With the way the women's game has evolved, these players are getting exposed to many, many different systems and set-ups because they play in club-world, where they're used to flexibility within their clubs.
"So I've been surprised in a pleasant way to suddenly see that this is truly becoming a global game."