Let’s hear it for the Lionesses: FIFA Women's World Cup 2023

As a mainly women-run business, we’re really keen to show our support for the Lionesses as they take part in this year’s FIFA Women's World Cup, taking place in Australia and New Zealand from 20 July to 20 August.

In fact, we’re here for women’s football in general, and are delighted to see it growing hugely in popularity, with last year’s Women’s Euros finals attracting more than 3 times the viewers (around 50 million) of the 2017 final.

“England’s Lionesses aren’t just inspiring girls they’re inspiring a nation.” - Lioness Lucy Bronze

This year's tournament - the basics

The latest championship is the  9th edition of the Women's World Cup and will break new ground by being jointly hosted by 2 nations. A total of 40 countries that have qualified for the group stage, split into 8 groups (each with 4 teams in).

Team USA are the favourites to win this year with 4 World Cup titles already, however the Lionesses are the 2022 Euros champions, so after the USA they are close favourites with Australia not far behind thanks to their star player Sam Kerr.

Australia and New Zealand will kick off the competition on Thursday 20 July with games against Norway and the Republic of Ireland, and the Lionesses’ first game is on the following Saturday against Haiti at 10:30am.

How the Women’s World Cup works

The competition starts with the group stage where countries play every team in their group once and the top 2 teams progress to the knockout stage or the round of 16. The Lionesses are in a group with Haiti,  Denmark and China and are predicted to top the group with Denmark coming a close second.

The England Group stage games are:

• Haiti - 22 JUL 10:30am
• Denmark - 28 JUL 9:30am
• China - 1  AUG 12:00pm

 - with the round of 16 games to be decided based on how the other countries perform within their groups.

Odds for winning

We know anything can happen at these tournaments, but the current best for who will come out victorious are as follows:

• USA - 3/1
• England - 5/1
• Spain - 6/1
• Germany - 8/1

Who to look out for

Not sure who the rising stars of the game are? Here’s a who’s who of names to remember:

• Ella Toone is the highest current scoring Lioness with 16 senior goals and 32 caps
• Millie Bright will be the captain for the World cup with 66 caps and 5 goals
•  Mary Earps the Lionesses Goalkeeper has 34 caps with 22 clean sheets

Key stats on the Lionesses

Since July the Lionesses have played 18 games and scored 52 goals with a 77.78% win percentage and are ranked 4th globally with roughly a 55% chance of winning.

Though, no matter where they rank once it's all over, we reckon it's going to be a fantastic event all round and we cannot wait to watch!