On October 22, 2022, about 800 guests gathered at Aotea Center in Auckland, New Zealand to watch the FIFA Womens’ World Cup Draw. The 29 teams that qualified to play in the Women’s World Cup will compete in July 2023. This will also go down in history as the first world cup co-hosted by two separate nations. 

Although it will take place in July 2023, about 7 months from now. The first event will be held on February 23rd, being the first Women’s World Cup Play-off tournament. During the play-off tournament, there will be 10 teams competing for the last three spots in the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup.  Those 10 countries are China, Thailand, Cameroon, Senegal, Haiti, Panama, Chile, Paraguay, Papua New Guinea, and one team from Europe. According to FIFA, it will allow the tournament to expand to 32 teams instead of 24. Which will allow for more teams to play at this level. 

The play-off tournament will also help teams prepare for the official tournament later that year since they will play against teams in the tournament and figure out what to practice and certain plays for each game. As of now, there are eight groups in the tournament, A-H. Groups D, E, and F, however, need one more team to be complete. Those three groups will be complete in the play-off tournament in February, which takes place for about a week, starting on the 17th. 

Similar to the Mens’ FIFA World Cup, there’s predictions as to which teams are going to win or do well. The favored team to win the 2023 Womens’ World Cup is the US Women’s National Team as it would be their third consecutive World Cup win. Which is because, they won 2015’s and 2019’s world cups. In Group A, which consists of Norway, Switzerland, New Zealand, and the Philippines. Even though the positions in the groups were chosen at random, Norway, however, is the top-ranked team in that group. 

With the most teams, 32, competing in the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup, there will be plenty of events and stories. It will be, as the slogan suggests, “Beyond Greatness”.