The FIFA Women's World Cup 2023 kicks off on Thursday, July 20, in Australia and New Zealand, with the mega tournament promising to be bigger and better than ever. 32 of the best countries in the world will battle to prevent the USA from running away with a third straight title, and fifth overall, and ahead of the competition, we look at five players: Some who are ready to leave the tournament on a high and others ready to pick up the mantle.
Sam Kerr
Playing at home, Sam Kerr will captain Australia with the aim of capping their gradual rise since 2019. In the last World Cup, Australia reached the Quarters, and then in 2021, the team reached the semis of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics in 2021 where they lost to Sweden.
Now 29, she is ready to cement her place as a true legend of the game. Playing for Chelsea in the Women's Super League (England's top football league), Kerr will now hope to add to her 2010 AFC Women's Asian Cup title and most recently, finished as the Golden Boot winner with 7 goals in only 4 matches in the 2022 AFC Women's Asian Cup hosted by India.
Wendie Renard
The French captain was at loggerheads with the team's previous head coach Corinne Diacre and was not supposed to be a part of this tournament because of her mental health. When former Ivory Coast took over, she returned to the team and was renamed the skipper of her team.
Renard, an Olympique Lyonnais Feminin legend in France, has won 14 French league titles and eight European Cups in her long and illustrious career. However, internationally, she has played in two FIFA Women's World Cups but her side have been eliminated in the quarter-finals in the last two editions of the tournament. This will most likely be her last tournament and she will want to go out with a bang.
Megan Rapinoe
One of the biggest names in the sport, Megan Rapinoe has 199 caps for the United States, with 63 goals and 73 assists to the forward's name. Her contributions have helped the States to two World Cup trophies, and at 38, she is set to retire at the end of this season.
An activist in her own right, she has helped improve the state of women's football in the USA as well as across the world, and heading into her final edition of the tournament, Rapinoe will want to add a third straight trophy to her name, ended a long and illustrious 17-year-career.
Alexia Putellas
Returning from a major injury will not deter the world's best football from fighting for the trophy with Spain. Alexia Putellas has won the prestigious Women’s Ballon d’Or in the last two years, and more recently, won the 'The Best' FIFA’s Women’s Player 2022 despite her intense Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) injury.
The Barcelona star is the first woman to bag 100 international caps for her country, and was a big miss in the 2022 European Championships, losing to eventual champions England in the quarter-finals. Putellas almost did not play this edition of the tournament but chose to turn up anyway despite the differences with coach Jorge Vilda and the Spanish football federation.
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