Who has qualified?
Most of the favorites and usual suspects advanced easily in the original round of qualification, creating an entry list that included both soccer names fans should recognize and a few that might raise eyebrows:
Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Denmark, England, France, Germany, Haiti, Ireland, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Morocco, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Panama, the Philippines, Portugal, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United States, Vietnam, Zambia.
Who were the last teams in?
There will be 32 teams at the Women’s World Cup this year, up from 24 from the last tournament in France in 2019, from 16 at the ones before that and from 12 in the inaugural event in 1991. But the field was finalized only after a playoff tournament in February in New Zealand, where 10 teams arrived for playoffs to decide the last three places.
Those spots went to:
Portugal, which beat Cameroon, 2-1, on a penalty kick in injury time to earn its first Women’s World Cup trip. Its prize? Portugal landed in a group with the United States, the Netherlands and Vietnam.