The 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup kicks off on July 20th with Australia and New Zealand sharing hosting duties. 64 games over the course of a month lead to the final on the 20th of August. All Team Canada games can be watched on TSN but do they have any chance of lifting the trophy?
Growth has been enormous in women’s soccer in recent years. The 2022 Euros tournament played in England saw an average attendance of more than 18,500 per game. Wembley hosted the final which saw the home team emerge victorious after extra time in front of a crowd of 87,192.
Canada is +3500 at present to lift the trophy, you can find the best sportsbooks to bet on Canada at the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup on the best betting sites in Canada. Can Canada win the World Cup? Keep reading and we will give you our opinion on the team, their main opponents and answer that all-important question.
Currently ranked seventh in the world, Canada is the reigning Olympic champion. Their best finish in the FIFA Women’s World Cup in the past was fourth in 2003. 2023 has been a bit of an inconsistent year for the side but they will have had all eyes on this tournament. What has gone before will not matter at all if they are able to return home with the trophy.
Their top player at the Olympics was Jessie Fleming. It is remarkable that Fleming already has 115 senior caps given that she is only aged 25. She has scored 19 goals over that span of games but two of those came in the semifinal and final of the Olympics. A clutch performer, she has won Canadian Player of the Year for the last two trips around the sun.
This will be a remarkable sixth trip to the World Cup for captain Christine Sinclair. She turned 40 last month so this will surely be her final time. That will make her hungry to go out on top. 190 goals in 323 senior caps, Sinclair is the heart and soul of the team. A veteran presence on the field but still capable of producing top-class performances, there will be a weight of expectation on her shoulders.
The next generation will be on show as well with Olivia Smith potentially the next face of Canadian football. The 18yo has just two senior appearances but she has shown quality and maturity beyond her years. Simi Awujo is the other teen in the squad, the 19yo has got six caps and was named Canada soccer young player of the year in 2022.
Only five games have been played so far in 2023 with one win, a draw and three losses on the board. The win came against Brazil and the draw against England while the defeats have been to the USA, Japan and France.
It would be unwise to read too much into any of those games with a rotating squad not being played at full strength. Sure, it would be great to win every game but that is never going to happen and the form of the Canada team coming in is only really going to be known for sure once the group stages get underway.
As mentioned above, the semi-final stage in 2003 has been as far as Canada has gone at the World Cup. They lost in the 3rd/4th playoff game that year to the USA. They failed to qualify for the inaugural World Cup in 1991 but have made each tournament since.
The early years were generally well below their current level. They failed to make it out of the group stages in 1995 and 1999 but more disappointingly, they failed to leave the group in 2007 or 2011 after their semi-final trip in 2002.
Germany in 2011 was the low point. Canada lost all three of their group games, scoring just a single goal in the process. That came in a group with some similarities to the 2023 tournament so they will be hoping for better on this occasion.
2015 saw Canada host the FIFA Women’s World Cup but they went out in the quarter-final to England in Vancouver. 2-0 within the first 15 minutes, there was a mountain to climb from a very early stage.
The most recent World Cup saw Canada dumped out in the round of 16. Sweden was their conqueror on that occasion, the European side going on to win third place in the tournament, beating England in the 3rd/4th playoff contest.
The group stages are made up of eight groups, with each having four teams in. The top two sides in each make their way into the round of 16. As a general rule, the group stages are relatively straightforward for the bigger sides, of which Canada would regard itself as one.
Canada will be fully expected to win their first two group games against Nigeria and the Republic of Ireland. The test is going to come in their final game which sees them take on one of the joint hosts, Australia.
These teams shared a group in 2011 which was Canada’s worst performance at a World Cup. That included a 1-0 loss to Nigeria in their final group game. They take on the African side in their opening game this time around rather than a dead rubber which at least adds importance.
Nigeria has won just four of the 26 games they have played at a FIFA Women’s World Cup. Ranked 40th in the world, they should not be good enough to trouble the current Canadian squad but they will look to cause problems under their American coach.
The Irish team will arrive full of confidence. They are rated as the 22nd-best team in the world but that is the highest that they have ever achieved. This will be the first time in seven tries that they have qualified for the FIFA Women’s World Cup so they will be desperate to make their mark.
They were far from disgraced in a pair of defeats to the USA in April, though a 3-0 loss at the hands of France in a warm-up match for this tournament earlier in July was a much lesser display.
Taking on the hosts in any tournament is never easy. Canada beat Australia twice in September 2022 in a pair of friendly games in Brisbane and Sydney. While a friendly game can never be taken as a strong guide to the form of each side, they are a pair of wins that can drive Canada on to victory once more.
There will be plenty of pressure on Australia given they are playing at home. If they can beat the Republic of Ireland and Nigeria in their opening two games they will be full of confidence but they will also be safely qualified for the round of 16.
The strength of women’s soccer has been growing for a number of years now. The quality is without question a world away from where it was a couple of decades ago and with the popularity continuing to rise, the next generation of players being brought into the game will take it to another level again. We look at four of the leading teams to lift the trophy below.
The red-hot favourites to lift the FIFA Women’s World Cup, they are looking for a hat-trick of successes after winning in both 2015 and 2019. Ranked number 1 in the world, they will arrive with high expectations
They have won 50% of all FIFA Women’s World Cups to be played, four of the eight. By far the most decorated team in the history of international women’s football, they are the team with the bullseye on their back. They do have the experience and natural ability to shrug that off. Whoever beats the USA looks like the most likely to end up as the tournament winner.
The current European champions look set for a relatively easy run to the round of 16. Fully expected to win Group D, they are the second favourites to win the tournament outright. That is a concern as they will be Canada’s round of 16 opponents if Canada fail to win their group.
That should be motivation enough for Canada to top their initial group. The two sides played out a 0-0 draw behind closed doors with both sides not playing a full strength team.
An interesting contender is the Spanish side. They will be looking forward to getting into another tournament having suffered heartbreak in the 2022 Euros. 1-0 up against England in the quarter-final stage, they conceded an 84th-minute equaliser before succumbing in extra time to the hosts and eventual tournament winners.
The fact that they were able to take England all the way, give them all that they could handle suggests that they are worth a second look as the third favourite for the tournament. Revenge will be on their mind.
The fourth favourite for the title will be another who has revenge on the English in their thinking. The losing finalists at Euro 2022, they also fell in extra time. At that point, a goal for France in the semi-final was the only one that Germany had conceded in the entire tournament, and that was an own goal.
Alexandra Popp leads the line, scoring six goals at Euro 2022, the final the only game that she failed to find the net in. The young player of the tournament was Lena Oberdorff. The 21yo midfielder can do better yet given her age and adds to the dangerous side that Germany is.
So, the big question is if Canada can win the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup. After their 2020 Olympics win, there is absolutely the quality in the side to lift the biggest trophy in women’s soccer. Whether they are able to catch lightning in a bottle for a second time is going to be tough with other teams also improving around them.
It is crucial that Canada make no mistakes in their three group games. Gaining the easiest round of 16 game can see them safely into at least the quarter-final stage. It is probable that they would see a match against France or Brazil in the last eight, depending on who wins that group.
Being able to tune back into how the team played at the 2020 Olympics will be crucial if Canada wants to lift the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup. There is little doubt that the ability is there and at +3500, they are a big enough price for those looking to have a bet on an underdog. Of course, there will be plenty of downtime between the matches. There are lots of new casinos that you can try out while waiting for the Canadian team to take the pitch again at the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup.
The 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup will be held in Australia and New Zealand from the 20th July to the 20th August. 33 of the games will be held in Australia with the other 29 held in New Zealand.
If the bookmakers are to be believed , the answer is the USA. They have won the last two FIFA Women’s World Cup so it is not a surprise that they are favorites once more. England are second favorite followed by Spain and Germany.
The Canada National team games can all be seen on TSN. Coverage for the Nigeria game starts at 9pm ET, 6pm PT. For the Republic of Ireland game it is 7am ET, 4am PT. The Australian game sees coverage starting at 5am ET and 2am PT.
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