It has become crystal clear that European teams will make a clean sweep of the medals in the on-going 8thFIFA Women’s World Cup final in France with all but one European country reaching the quarter final stage.
Specifically, seven out of eight European countries that entered the global football competition are still in the race after the conclusion of the Round of 16 matches last night. Only debutant, Scotland was eliminated in the group stage.
The European nations still powering on in the month-long women’s football festival are host country-France and their neighbours Germany, England, Netherlands, Italy, Norway and Sweden.
Only the defending champions, United States of America (USA) breached the European lineup as they held their own to eliminate another European power, Spain in the Round of 16. USA beat hard fighting Spain 2-1 in Reims on Monday to halt the rampaging Europeans on their tracks.
Interestingly, European teams eliminated teams from other confederations of CAF, AFC, OFC, CONMEBOL and CONCACAF especially in the Round of 16 where the UEFA countries’ teams handed bitter defeats to teams from the above listed confederations.
Germany started the annihilation with a 3-0 pounding of Nigeria /CAF in Grenoble last Saturday, the same day Norway eliminated Australia/AFC 4-1 (pen) in Nice. On Sunday it was the turn of Cameroon/CAF to suffer another 3-0 humiliation in the hands of England while France beat Brazil/ CONMEBOL 2-1.
Sweden on Monday sent highly-rated Canada/CONCACAF with a 1-0 defeat just as yesterday Italy sent home China/ AFC after a 2-0 victory and it was a Dutch delight as Netherlands eliminated the last Asian team standing-Japan/AFC 2-1 at Roazhon Park in Rennes to complete a near all-European quarter final lineup.
The dominance of the European teams has also clearly shown that women’s football has taken a deep root in Europe and their continental football governing body is doing a good job in developing and promoting the game in their jurisdiction than any other confederation anywhere in the world.
Except the 3-time FIFA Women’s World Cup winners, USA beats France on Friday, European teams will claim Gold, Silver and Bronze as well as the Fourth place finish in the competition held in their domain.
