The X edition of the Women’s Rugby World Cup kicks off this Friday at the ‘Stadium of Light’ in Sunderland with an uneven duel between the United States and England, the host and main contender to dethrone New Zealand, winner of six of the last seven titles.
The English, runners-up in the last two World Cups, winners in 2014 and absolute dominators in Europe having won the Six Nations in the last seven years with a clean sweep of victories, should have no problem in defeating an American team that seeks to revive the laurels of the nineties, when they won the inaugural edition of the World Cup.
Beyond England and New Zealand, it’s complicated to glimpse any other team with options, since France – who was a kick away from defeating New Zealand on their own field in the 2021 semi-final and one point away from beating England in London in the last Six Nations – is going through a crisis in their locker room and seems closer to losing third place to Canada than to worry the two favorites.
In any case, the four selections mentioned are the seeded teams and those that, predictably, will play the semi-finals of a tournament with 16 participants divided into four groups, whose top two finishers at the end of the league phase will play the quarter-finals.
Group A, with England and the United States, is completed by Samoa and Australia; Canada heads group B, in which it will compete against Fiji, Wales and Scotland; the top-ranked New Zealand selection is in group C along with Spain, its rival on Sunday, Japan and Ireland; and France should lead group D, as it seems far superior to South Africa, Brazil and Italy.
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Absent from the last edition, New Zealand 2021, the Spanish national team returns to a World Cup with the aspiration -almost quixotic- of playing a quarter-final that it has not played since it was the host in 2002, for which it must beat Japan and an Ireland against which it lost by only two points less than two years ago.
The team led by Juan González Marruecos, inexperienced in world championships but undefeated in the last four editions of the European Championship, must show its progress from the last campaigns, in which it has achieved prestigious victories against top-level rivals such as Fiji.
