9781422275979

1991 FIFA WOMEN’S WORLD CUP

The very first Women’s World Cup was not initially known as a World Cup. Officially, it was the FIFA Women’s World Championship. FIFA is the sport’s international governing body, the Fédération Internationale de Football Association. FIFA had staged what was essentially a world championship trial run in 1988 when it organized an invitational tournament in China for twelve teams. The success of that event led to the go-ahead for the 1991 tournament in Guangdong, China.

The Americans qualified easily for the tournament, scoring forty-five goals and giving up none in winning five-straight qualification matches against teams from the Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football, known as CONCACAF. This reflects the non- competitive state of women’s soccer in CONCACAF at the time. In China, the competition was somewhat stronger, but the Americans played just two matches that were won by fewer than three goals in their undefeated run to the championship victory. Akers had ten The United States was one of the twelve countries, indicated in blue, to qualify for the first FIFA Women’s World Cup.

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