Underdogs serve notice that the gap is closing at Women’s World Cup

SYDNEY – If there were concerns about blowouts when the Women’s World Cup expanded to 32 teams for the 2023 edition, minnows Haiti, Jamaica and Ireland have served notice they deserve to be on the game’s biggest stage.

Germany, Brazil and Japan might have racked up the goals in their opening matches but other title contenders have faced much stiffer competition from lowly-ranked opponents than they might have expected.

“We belong. We think we can compete at this level,” Philippines coach Alen Stajcic said after his 46th-ranked team lost 2-0 to Switzerland, and had a goal disallowed for offside.

“We’ve arrived at the point where we’ve improved significantly enough… and believe that we can win.”

At the 2019 World Cup in France, the United States demolished Thailand 13-0 with the shocking scoreline raising questions about parity.

Four years later, the most lopsided score after the first round of matches was Germany’s 6-0 win over Morocco. Vietnam drew the short straw as the first opponents for the Americans but were far from humiliated by a 3-0 loss.

Despite eight teams making their World Cup debuts, the storyline in Australia and New Zealand has been far more about the pleasant surprises.

Jamaica’s Reggae Girlz, outscored 12-1 in 2019, held fifth-ranked France to a hardfought 0-0 draw in Sydney.

European champions England narrowly edged Haiti 1-0, while fellow debutants Ireland lost only 1-0 to Australia despite facing a record crowd of 75,784 in Sydney.

“There are good players coming through the ranks now and I think once upon a time the US was very, very dominant. And you can see the gap is closing,” said Jamaica coach Lorne Donaldson.

“I think the smaller nations are jumping on that bandwagon and saying ‘We can do this too’.”

New Zealand set the tone in the tournament opener, finally winning a game after 15 World Cup losses with a 1-0 upset of former champions Norway.

The new parity comes despite a cavernous gap in preparedness between teams at the top and bottom of the rankings.

A study by players union Fifpro found that Haiti played less than a third of the number games that the US did in their World Cup preparations, and less than half as many as England.

“Going into this World Cup the game has just grown and a lot of federations have grown as well,” said US defender Naomi Girma.

“(Closer scores are) to be expected and I think it’s great to see so many countries coming in and making a great impression on the world stage.”