FIFA Women's World Cup

FIFA Women's World Cup is recognized as the most important International competition in women's football and is played amongst women's national football teams of the member states of FIFA, the sport's global governing body. Contested every four years, the first Women's World Cup tournament, named the Women's World Championship, was held in 1991, sixty-one years after the men's first FIFA World Cup tournament in 1930. The current format has sixteen teams competing every four years for the winner's trophy.

History

The tournament was originally the brainchild of the then FIFA president João Havelange. The inaugural tournament was hosted in China in 1991, with twelve teams sent to represent their countries. The 1995 FIFA Women's World Cup was held in Sweden with twelve teams. Over 660,000 spectators attended the 1999 FIFA Women's World Cup in the United States. The United States and Germany have won the championship twice, and Norway once. Germany is the two-time defending champion.

In the 1999 edition, one of the most famous moments of the tournament was American defender Brandi Chastain's victory celebration after scoring the Cup-winning penalty shot against China. She took off her jersey and waved it over her head (as men frequently do), showing her muscular torso and sports bra as she celebrated. The 1999 final in the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California had an attendance of 90,185, a world record for a women's sporting event.

The 1999 and 2003 Women's World Cups were both held in the United States; in 2003 China was supposed to host it but the tournament was moved because of SARS. As compensation, China retained its automatic qualification to the 2003 tournament as host nation and was automatically chosen to host the 2007 FIFA Women's World Cup. Germany will host the 2011 FIFA Women's World Cup, as decided by vote in October 2007. In March 2011 FIFA awarded Canada the right to host the 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup. The 2015 edition will see the field expand from 16 to 24 teams.

At the 2007 World Cup in China, U.S. captain Kristine Lilly competed in her fifth (and ultimately final)World Cup, making her the only woman and one of three players in history to appear in five World Cups.

Format

The participants qualify through the regional football confederations of Oceania (OFC), Europe (UEFA), North America, Central America and the Caribbean (CONCACAF), South America (CONMEBOL), Asia (AFC) and Africa (CAF).

The competition takes place over the course of three weeks. In the group stage, 16 teams seeded into four groups (A,B,C, and D) compete against each other in a round-robin tournament. After Germany trounced Argentina 11–0 in the opening game of the 2007 World Cup, FIFA president Sepp Blatter conceded that the one-sided match was "not good for the game" and was something that FIFA would consider in deciding whether or not to expand the group phase to 24 teams. On 3 December 2009, FIFA decided to expand the women's World Cup to 24 teams for 2015.

In the knockout phase, the top two teams from each group advance to the quarterfinals, a single-elimination tournament in which teams play each other in one-off matches, with extra time and penalty shootouts used to decide the winner if necessary. The winner of Group A plays the runner-up of Group B, The winner of Group B plays the runner-up of Group A, etc.

The winners of the four quarterfinal games move on to the semifinal matches, which determine the contestants for the championship game. The losing semifinalists compete to determine third place.
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