World Cup 2023: Ranking The Groups By Difficulty
Believe it or not, we're just one week out from the kickoff of the 2023 Women's World Cup in Australia and New Zealand! At this time in just 7 days-- well, not exactly at this time, unless you happen to reading this piece at 3:30 ET --the premier competition of the women's game, the most-played sport in the world will get underway.
There will be plenty more preview content from here until kickoff in Auckland to get you excited, but we'll start with a simple examination of all of the teams that comprise an unprecedented 32-team Women's World Cup. Shortly on the heels of an exciting 2019 World Cup, FIFA announced that the next edition of the tournament would expand the field from 24 nations to 32. This change was announced a mere 8 years after the first-ever expansion of the tournament, when the usual 16 was bumped up to 24 for the 2015 World Cup. You can feel whichever type of way you want to towards FIFA for this decision, and make no mistake, the safe assumption is that they have only more money and better PR in mind; but even if it were just a convenient cover for their reasoning, there's no question the global growth in the women's game is real and rapid, and as such, the biggest-ever edition of the World Cup promises to both be its most competitive and have its highest 'upset potential' yet.
The last three playoff spots for qualification were completed in late February, and at the beginning of summer, FIFA released their first updated rankings for both the men's and women's nations in some months. Now that we know all 32 teams competing in the 2023 World Cup, and their up-to-date FIFA world ranking, we can dive into the obvious questions like, which group is the hardest? Which is the easiest? Which is sneakily competitive? Which is the most top-heavy? Much of the post-draw conversation concurred that there wasn't really a 'Group of Death' like the ones of yore. And that's not a bad take! An expanded tournament will almost surely yield more 'lightweight' teams than in years past. Plus, the change that FIFA implemented before the 2018 World Cup for men, and 2019 Cup for women, to separate the four pots for the draw by pure ranking alone-- instead of by geography --meant we would no longer run the risk of seeing groups like, say, the United States' group in 2015. The eventual champions were the favorites in Group D that year, but had to go through the likes of #5 Sweden, #10 Australia, and #30 Nigeria just to make the knockout stages (and, fittingly, it was a bit of a slog; the Yanks topped the group, but only by an average of 1 goal over each opponent).
But is the take totally accurate? Just because the teams from each pot had more clear separation from each other doesn't mean that some, let alone just one, groups could clearly be more difficult than others, right? To answer those questions, I think we need to examine group difficulty from two angles: quality and competitiveness. Traditionally, pundits and fans alike have bestowed the "Group of Death" label on the group, or sometimes groups, who have the most eye-popping names, whether that's just the countries themselves who have earned respect, or the star players in that group. I've always thought that only tells part of the story, though; to me, group of "death" would mean a group that is competitive from top to bottom. For example, I was irked when in the 2010 Men's World Cup, most everyone referred to Group G as the Group of Death. Sure, it had perennial favorites Brazil, Cristiano Ronaldo's Portugal, and Dider Drogba's Ivory Coast. But it also had North Korea, who was-- as you might expect --far and away the worst team at the tournament. So while half of each group's difficulty rating is based on the sheer quality of the teams in question, the other half of my rating format factors in the average distance from team to team within the group, to address the question of just how competitive each group will be as well.
One point of clarification, and two caveats: since FIFA rankings, as all rankings do, start at the top with 1 and go up from there, and since a smaller range indicates MORE competitiveness, the lower a group's "Death Rating" is, the more difficult it is. And the two caveats are to acknowledge two imperfections: first off, this is all based on the highly flawed, often confusing FIFA rankings. Not only that, it's based on rankings of these countries a good two months before the tournament even begins. It's a flawed system, to be sure, but it's the best one we have for objective measurement on a global scale.
All of that being said, here are this year's World Cup groups, in ascending order of difficulty from the Group of Life to the Group of Death:
8. Group C
#6 Spain
#36 Costa Rica
#77 Zambia
#11 Japan
Mean Rank: 32.5
Median Rank: 23.5
Quality Rating
56.0
Mean Range: 23.67
Median Range: 25.0
Competitiveness Rating
48.67
DEATH RATING
104.67
Coming in a pretty clear last place in the difficulty race is Group C. This may seem mildly surprising, since the group is not short on talent, nor history. The undoing here is the vast gulf in quality between the top two and bottom two. Upstarts and seeded team Spain, who boast the reigning Ballon d'Or winner in Alexia Putellas, as well as 2011 champions and 2015 runners-up Japan, could hang with any other team in this tournament. But it will be a bona fide shock if either of them are beaten to the knockout stages by debutantes Costa Rica or Zambia, the latter of whom is the lowest-ranked team in the tournament.
7. Group H
#2 Germany
#72 Morocco
#25 Colombia
#17 South Korea
Mean Rank: 29.0
Median Rank: 21.0
Quality Rating
50.0
Mean Range: 23.33
Median Range: 15.0
Competitiveness Rating
38.33
DEATH RATING
88.33
Similar to the last group, Group H's problem is with half its field, in this case its bookending teams. Morocco is the second-lowest ranked team in the competition, only ahead of Zambia, and Germany are probably the second-favorites to win the tournament behind the United States. That said, in between the teams you can almost surely pencil in for 1st and 4th place will be quite the entertaining battle for 2nd between South Korea and Colombia.
6. Group G
#3 Sweden
#54 South Africa
#16 Italy
#28 Argentina
Mean Rank: 25.25
Median Rank: 22.0
Quality Rating
47.25
Mean Range: 17.0
Median Range: 13.0
Competitiveness Rating
30.00
DEATH RATING
77.25
The shape of Group G is almost identical to that of H, but it slots in as slightly tougher because the range isn't quite as extreme. This one should also feature a thrilling fight for 2nd between Italy and Argentina; that said, however unlikely it may be, it's not completely out of the question one of them could push favorites Sweden for 1st place. Nor would it be completely out of the question that likely last-place finishers South Africa take a precious point off one or both of them.
5. Group F
#5 France
#43 Jamaica
#8 Brazil
#52 Panama
Mean Rank: 27.0
Median Rank: 25.5
Quality Rating
52.5
Mean Range: 15.67
Median Range: 9.0
Competitiveness Rating
24.67
DEATH RATING
77.17
Group F clocks in at just a fingernail tougher than G, and that comes as a mild surprise, as this probably has the easiest 1st-and-2nd place projection of any group in the Cup. The key here is the competitveness within its upper half and bottom half. While CONCACAF underdogs Jamaica and Panama will almost surely lose their other two matches, they could have quite a battle royale for a conciliatory 3rd place, and atop the group, France v Brazil may just be the best matchup of the entire first round.
4. Group A
#26 New Zealand
#12 Norway
#46 Philippines
#20 Switzerland
Mean Rank: 26.0
Median Rank: 23.0
Quality Rating
49.0
Mean Range: 11.33
Median Range: 8.0
Competitiveness Rating
19.33
DEATH RATING
68.33
The bad news for co-hosts New Zealand? Not a traditional power, and outside the Top 25 in the World, they're the lowest-ever ranked host nation at the WWC, and thus run the risk of being the first hosts ever to fail to progress out of the group stage. The good news? They absolutely could still progress from this group. 1995 champions and perennial contenders Norway are the clear favorites, but even they could be less than the sum of their parts, as was the case in their disastrous Euro Cup tournament last summer. In New Zealand, Switzerland, and the Philippines, there lies a sneakily competitive race (Group A holds the lowest median range between teams of any group) between three decent but unspectacular sides.
3. Group D
#4 England
#53 Haiti
#13 Denmark
#14 China
Mean Rank: 21.0
Median Rank: 13.5
Quality Rating
34.50
Mean Range: 16.33
Median Range: 9.0
Competitiveness Rating
25.33
DEATH RATING
59.83
Haiti were a shock qualifier, amidst a playoff bracket that included heavy favorites Chile, and the debutantes are a great story. That said, they will almost surely be the victims of the other three Group D members' attempts to rack up goal-differential advantages. The Haitians are the clear outlier in what would likely otherwise be considered the toughest group of the tournament. England's Lionesses are a trendy pick to win the whole damn thing, one year after finally conquering Europe, but they will not have an easy go of it. Enduring contenders China will have something to say about that, as will upstarts Denmark, whose women's team has seen a rapid ascent. Both teams will not only be locked in an epic battle to crash the Round of 16, they're more than capable of taking points off of favorites England.
2. Group B
#10 Australia
#22 Ireland
#7 Canada
#40 Nigeria
Mean Rank: 19.75
Median Rank: 16.0
Quality Rating
35.75
Mean Range: 11.0
Median Range: 12.0
Competitiveness Rating
23.00
DEATH RATING
58.75
The good news for co-hosts Australia? Unlike their Kiwi neighbors and co-hosts to the South, they are a notably strong team on paper who have experience in the latter stages of this tournament. The bad news? Also unlike New Zealand, the Aussies will have to first get through perhaps the toughest top-to-bottom group of all. The Matildas will be favorites in large part due to raucous home support, but between the quietly strong debutantes Ireland, the seemingly consistently-underrated Nigeria, and oh yeah, reigning gold medal winners Canada? There's no taking the foot off the gas for any team here.
1. Group E
#1 United States
#32 Vietnam
#9 Netherlands
#21 Portugal
Mean Rank: 15.75
Median Rank: 15.0
Quality Rating
30.75
Mean Range: 10.33
Median Range: 11.0
Competitiveness Rating
21.33
DEATH RATING
52.08
Avid fans of The Couch will remember that when I did this same piece for the Men's World Cup last November, the United States' group took top honors for the most difficult then, too. And look, I'll admit it: it's a bit convenient. You don't even need to be a conspiracy theorist to argue that seems a little fishy, perhaps especially in this case. But I think USWNT supporters are perhaps a little clouded by the incredible run of success over the last decade; it's no wonder we all expect the two-time defending champions to waltz through their group, but look a little closer and you'll see it's not that simple. For starters, they come up against The Netherlands, the same side that they faced off against in the 2019 Final. Those two will certainly be pipped to progress from Group E, but Portugal is the strongest they've ever been and ready to prove it, and because they were the highest-ranked qualifying playoff winners by some margin, that means Vietnam is actually the best lowest-ranked team of any quarter, by a decent margin. It may not be a conventional "Group of Death," but the numbers don't lie: by having both the highest ceiling and highest floor of any group, and competitive battles between 1 & 2, 2 & 3, and 3 & 4, Group E is the toughest group on paper heading into this World Cup.
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