The Official History of the FIFA Women's World Cup: The story of women's football from 1881 to the present

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Find out more about team profiles, venue guides and star players to watch out for with the definitive illustrated guide to FIFA Women's World Cup Australia/New Zealand 2023 that no football fan should be without. Taking place between the 20th July and 20th August which of the 32 teams competing is your favourite to win? For all the above, this was a tournament that brought an immense amount of hope and confidence that respect for women's football is actually headed in the right direction. Asked how it felt, Fischer said: “We had a very safe environment in the team. So it was probably the best environment to do it in. But it’s an extremely strange situation and overall not a comfortable way to do it.” I speak as one who has (late in life) been won over to the beautiful game by this splendid team of valiant women. This is because they play spectacular football. Also, thanks to excellent commentating by their former colleagues, I have gained an understanding of how the game is actually played - something male commentators have never even attempted to provide. In addition to a greater appreciation of tactics and strategies, I have come to realise something sports journalists deliberately obscue - if one team is to win, the other must lose.

There were similarly solid turnouts in New Zealand, where more than 700,000 fans attended 29 matches.These are big games and it has some physicality too - for them and for us. That's part of the game and we dealt with it really well," said Wiegman.

In Spain, RTVE’s main channel La1 managed an average of 5.6 million viewers for La Roja’s 1-0 triumph in the final, equal to a market share of 65.7 per cent. Coverage peaked with 7.38 million viewers and a share of 71.1 per cent. It was the biggest audience for the channel since the men’s World Cup final last December. According to sports marketing agency Redtorch, England were the most engaged with team across all channels, netting 27.4 million engagements. This put the Lionesses comfortably ahead of Australia (17.6 million), Colombia (10.9 million), Sweden (8.2 million) and the US (7.9 million), who completed the top five. The Matildas led the way on follower growth, adding an extra 768,024 fans. La Roja captain Olga Carmona’s winning goal was the crowning moment on an epic few weeks in Australia and New Zealand, which saw the world’s best players deliver a compelling tournament defined by major upsets, nail-biting games and huge public interest. The only two people who managed to get hold of Earps goalkeeper jerseys were her own parents external-link - proudly wearing the old match shirts in loyal support. It could be seen as a missed commercial opportunity for the brand, given replicas of Earps' Manchester United kit, produced by Adidas, sold out last season.Still, the average attendance for the tournament was 30,911, up from 21,756 at the 2019 Women’s World Cup in France. That means it is only the third time in the history of the event that the competition averaged more than 30,000 fans per match. Fifa also said that stadiums had been at 84.1 per cent occupancy after 63 games. They were without suspended top-scorer Lauren James, who is serving a two-match ban following her red card against Nigeria, but England did enough in front of goal to seal victory in a tough encounter. Strong individual performances helped them. Russo barely put a foot wrong beside a wasted header in the first half and was rewarded for her endeavour when the ball bounced kindly for her to score. Heading into the quarter-finals, England's Earps said "there was more to come from them", having not shown their best aside from an impressive 6-1 thrashing of China.