Get ready to bet on the FIFA Women’s World Cup play-offs. The draw will be held on September 7th, 2018. In order to qualify, each confederation organizes its own competition. We will now take each of them and see which teams are still in the race for the 2019 Women’s World Cup.
AFC
The AFC organizes the 2018 AFC Women’s Asian Cup. they get 5 final slots. Out of the 24 nations that started, only 8 are still in the race: Jordan, Japan, Australia, China PR, Philippines, South Korea, Thailand and Vietnam.
The qualifiers will take place in April 2018 and will send 5 teams to France. The 8 teams were divided in 2 groups, A and B, of 4 teams each. The winners and runner-ups of each group will play in the semi-finals. The SF winners are automatically qualified. The SF losers fight for the 3rd place but they are still qualified. And last, the fifth place is taken by the winner between the 3rd place teams of Group A and B.
CAF
The CAF has the 2018 Total Women Africa Cup of Nations where 25 countries started and battle for 3 slots. The tournament will begin in February. The first 2 places of group A and B are qualified and the 3rd place is taken by the winner of the game between the SF losers.
CONCACAF
This confederation has the 2018 CONCACAF Women’s Championship and the top 3 teams will qualify to the World Cup. The 4rth place will enter a play-off against the 3rd place of CONMEBOL.
So far, we only know only the North American teams that will play in the championship: Canada, Mexico and the US. Central America will give 2 teams and the Caribbean 3 teams, all of which will battle for one of the 3 spots to the World Cup in France.
CONMEBOL
The CONMEBOL organizes the 2018 Copa América Femenina where the following countries will battle for 2 spots: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela. The third place will play against the CONCACAF 4rth place and the winner goes to France.
OFC
The OFC has the 2018 OFC Women’s Nations Cup, the winner of which qualifies to the World Cup. At the moment 11 teams are in play: Cook Islands, New Caledonia, New zealand, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Tahiti, Tonga, American Samoa, Fiji, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu.
UEFA
The UEFA has 8 spots plus the host (H), France, who is automatically qualified. Out of 46 teams, 35 got to the qualifying group stage which is still going on until September 2018. There are 11 teams that didn’t make it past the preliminary rounds where the 16 lowest ranking teams battled for 5 spots to join the top 30 ranking teams that got directly to the qualifying groups.
Here are the countries that still compete in the UEFA competition for the World Cup:
Pot A: Germany, England, Norway, Sweden, Spain, Switzerland, Italy
Pot B: Netherlands, Iceland, Scotland, Denmark, Austria, Belgium, Russia
Pot C: Finland, Ukraine, Wales, Romania, Poland, the Czech Republic, the Republic of Ireland
Pot D: Portugal, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Belarus, Slovakia, Slovenia
Pot E: Northern Ireland, Croatia, Israel, Kazakhstan, Albania, the Faroe Islands, Moldova.
The winner of each pot automatically goes to France while the 4 best runner-ups go to the playoffs. There are 2 SFs and the SF winners go to the final. The final winner goes to the World Cup.