FIFA Women's World Cup

The 2018 Women's Africa Cup of Nations kicked off last Sunday to determine which CAF teams will be headed to France next summer. Similar to the Concacaf format, eight teams were divided into two groups, with the top two teams in Groups A and B advancing to the knockout rounds. The winners of the semifinal matches would automatically qualify for the World Cup while the losers would go head-to-head in a third-place match to determine the final CAF spot. 

Another day, another piece of evidence to file into the women’s soccer folder titled: “The World Is Catching Up With The USWNT.” 

The USWNT U-17 Women's World Cup campaign took a bad turn on Saturday. Featured on FS2 — one of the few soccer matches on TV in the U.S. on a day dominated by college football — the Americans were routed by North Korea 3-0 in their second Group C match in Uruguay. 

The U.S. opened the tournament with a 3-0 win while North Korea lost 4-1. Perhaps the Americans assumed they’d have an easy win based on those scores, but that was anything but the case. 

Just like Switzerland many time zones away, Panama had a steep hill to climb going into its game against Argentina at home on Tuesday night. Panama dropped a 4-0 decision to Argentina in the first game of the two-legged playoff. Much of the drama in that fixture took place in stoppage time as Argentina scored two goals and Panama saw two players sent off.

It was always going to be an uphill battle for the Swiss heading into Tuesday's second game of the two-leg playoff to decide which UEFA team would lock up the region’s last spot in the 2019 Women’s World Cup. Switzerland found itself in quite a significant hole after a 3-0 away loss on Thursday and needed to be firing on all cylinders (an off day from its opponent wouldn’t hurt either) to keep its hopes alive. 

The Scotland women’s national team gave the U.S. all it could handle on Tuesday at St Mirren Park, and although there was warm applause for Alex Morgan and an audible intake of breath amongst the 3,790 in attendance during the USWNT’s best passages of play, the Scots will have left their home supporters looking forward to next summer’s World Cup with keen anticipation. 

All but one UEFA qualification spot has been filled for next summer’s World Cup. The battle for that coveted berth began Friday in Utrecht in front of a sellout crowd as the home side took on Switzerland in the first of two matches to decide their fate. The Netherlands won 3-0.

Last we saw the Panama women's soccer team, Yenith Bailey was doing everything she could to try to get the tiny Central American nation to its first ever women’s World Cup. Panama fell just short, finishing fourth place in the Concacaf Women’s Championship, missing out on the final automatic berth.