England learn their fate and the World Cup draw
The draw for the 2015 Women’s World cup was conducted in Ottawa, Canada yesterday in and paired England with Mexico, Columbia and France. They will open their World cup campaign with easily the toughest group opponent France on the 9th of June in Moncton. They then move on to face Columbia four days later, again in Moncton and conclude their group matches against Mexico in Montreal on the 17th of June.
In many ways this on the face of it is a good draw for England for a few reasons. Firstly the travel distance, by Canadian standards the two cities are close together with a flight time of around 90 minutes between the two.
Going into the draw England knew they were going to be played one of the top seeds but they will be happy to have avoided the USA, Germany and the World champions Japan. France are currently ranked 4th in the world and have an excellent record against England but with the Lionesses due to face them first up England will at least avoid being in a “Must win” situation against them as they were in the last European championships when the French strolled to a 3-0 win. Mexico who sit 25th in the rankings have struggled over the past couple of years and were unconvincing in a week CONCAFF section scraping past Trinidad and Tobago in the 3/4th place playoff game. Columbia are are ranked at 31st and came through South American qualifying fairly smoothly.
The teams that finish in the top two positions in all six groups will advance to the next round as will the 4 third placed teams with the best records. Given this 4 or even 3 points could be enough to progress so England should feel confidant of gaining the points required against Mexico and Columbia even if they fail to get anything out of the opening game against the French.
Elsewhere in the draw the big talking point was in Group D which sees the United States meet Sweden, Australia and Nigeria in what many see as the “Group of death” Hosts Canada will be reasonably happy with their draw as they have been drawn against The Netherlands, New Zealand and China. It is against the Chinese that Canada will open the tournament against on the 6th of June.
Full World Cup draw.
Group A: Canada, New Zealand, China, Netherlands.
Group B: Germany, Ivory Coast, Thailand, Norway
Group C: Japan, Cameroon Ecuador, Switzerland
Group D: USA, Nigeria, Australia, Sweden
Group E: Brazil, Costa Rica, South Korea, Spain
Group F: France, Mexico, Columbia, England.