Four years ago, the 2019 Fifa Women’s World Cup, won by the US, was hailed as a pinnacle moment for women’s football. The accolade was deserved. But if 2019 was a pinnacle, what can be said about this year’s even more remarkable contest? The 2023 World Cup reaches a peak in Sydney on Sunday, when England and Spain face each other in the final. Yet if the contest over the last month proves one big thing, it is that, in women’s football, every pinnacle and peak still conceals another even higher one than the summit just reached.
The achievements of 2023 go beyond even England’s understandable delight and excitement at reaching – and hopefully winning – a first football World Cup final since the men’s now long distant victory in 1966. The most important of these wider successes is this tournament’s wonderful confirmation of real strength in depth in the women’s game on every continent. Although two European sides will contest the final, the global attainment gap is everywhere narrowing. Australia, Colombia and Japan deservedly reached the last eight (and Australia went further). Jamaica and Nigeria came close to joining them. China, Morocco, the Philippines, South Africa and Zambia all won group stage games. It can only be a matter of time before an African, Caribbean or Oceanian team gets to the final.
