Another World Cup is coming up this summer, this time in New Zealand and starting in July. I am here to give a verdict based on the growing parity in women's soccer that I discussed here. I don't know who will win the Women's World Cup but will predict that it will not be the U.S. Women's national team.
Welcome back to Far-Fetched Friday, where we give you a bold prediction that we believe will come to fruition. This Friday, we look at the Women's World Cup.
It may seem like a cop-out to say one team won't win the world cup, but I think it's fair, considering the USWNT has reached three finals in a row, won the last two, and finished in the top three of all eight tournaments so far, and have walked away as champions in four of eight world cups. At the very least, they are the overwhelming favorites.
I'm not going to say the U.S. is a falling giant because the talent is still there, it's just other teams are catching up. It's like the one athlete who was bigger, faster, and stronger than everyone at a young age and dominated, but as the other kids grew up and hit puberty, the athlete was still a good player but no longer nearly as dominant. In this case, the evidence for this is the fact that the U.S. finished in the top four of the first six U20 World Cups between 2002 and 2012, but since then, they have only managed a finish as high once in four tournaments and even failed to advance past the group stage in 2022 for the second tournament in a row.
The world is catching up, and this World Cup will display that as the national team fails to win a third straight.
