2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup: Setting Up The Final Group Games

The 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup in Canada will kick off the final group stage games today. Things are looking wide open for teams to advance to the knockout stages, with not much distance separating many of the teams in the competition. In fact, only the Ivory Coast and Ecuador are mathematically eliminated out of the 24 teams, while only defending champion Japan and Brazil have assured they will move on to the next stage.

Things will get tricky with the 3rd place tiebreakers. Each group’s top two finishers will advance to the knockout stage, but so will four of the 3rd place finishers. Those spots will be allocated to those 3rd place finishers with the most points, followed by goal differential and the number of goals scored. With the competition very tight, we might not know the 16 teams in the knockout stage until the final whistle of the group stage on Wednesday.

Here’s how the tables look heading into the final matches:

Group A

1. Canada 1-1-0 (4 points, +1 goal differential)
2. China 1-0-1 (3 pts, 0)
3. Netherlands 1-0-1 (3 pts, 0)
4. New Zealand 0-1-1 (1 pt, -1)

Canada plays The Netherlands and China plays New Zealand on Monday.

Group B

1. Germany 1-1-0 (4 pts, +10)
2. Norway 1-1-0 (4 pts, +4)
3. Thailand 1-0-1 (3 pts, -3)
4. Ivory Coast 0-0-2 (0 pts, -11)

Germany plays Thailand and Norway plays the Ivory Coast on Monday.

Group C

1. Japan 2-0-0 (6 pts, +2)
2. Switzerland 1-0-1 (3 pts, +8)
3. Cameroon 1-0-1 (3 pts, +5)
4. Ecuador 0-0-2 (0 pts, -15)

Japan plays Ecuador and Switzerland plays Cameroon on Tuesday.

Group D

1. United States 1-1-0 (4 pts, +2)
2. Australia 1-0-1 (3 pts, 0)
3. Sweden 0-2-0 (2 pts, 0)
4. Nigeria 0-1-1 (1 pt, -2)

The United States play Nigeria and Australia plays Sweden on Tuesday.

Group E

1. Brazil 2-0-0 (6 pts, +3)
2. Costa Rica 0-2-0 (2 pts, 0)
3. Spain 0-1-1 (1 pt, -1)
4. South Korea 0-1-1 (1 pt, -2)

Brazil plays Costa Rica and Spain plays South Korea on Wednesday.

Group F

1. Colombia 1-1-0 (4 pts, +2)
2. England 1-0-1 (3 pts, 0)
3. France 1-0-1 (3 pts, -1)
4. Mexico 0-1-1 (1 pt, -1)

Colombia plays England and France plays Mexico on Wednesday.