Top four women's teams kept apart until the 2027 World Cup semi-finals
The best four teams in the women's game will not meet each other before the semi-finals of the 2027 Women's World Cup, as long as each one wins its group. FIFA confirmed the arrangement on Wednesday 11 November, and The Guardian reported the details.
The four teams are Spain, the United States, Germany and England, ranked first to fourth in the women's world rankings. The rankings are a points table that tracks results over time, and they decide how teams are seeded, which means where they are placed for the draw. Seeding updates will be based on the rankings published on 7 December, so the order could still shift before the draw.
The draw takes place on 11 December at 1:30pm local time, at the Museum of Modern Art in Rio de Janeiro. Brazil, as hosts, have already been placed in Group A. Teams are sorted into four pots, and the draw picks one team from each pot for every group. Pot 4 will include three places for the winners of an inter-confederation playoff, a final qualifying event that ends in March and brings together teams from different continental regions.
There is a second rule that shapes the groups. No group can contain more than one team from the same continent, with one exception: European teams may have up to two in a single group. That keeps the mix of regions spread out.
The tournament opens at the Maracanã on 24 June 2027, and the final is at the same stadium on 25 July.
Before any of that, there is work to do on the pitch. The United States play El Salvador on 27 November in qualifying. England must beat Ukraine over two legs, on 1 and 5 December, to book their place. A two-legged tie means one match at each team's home ground, with the aggregate score deciding the winner.
For fans, the practical effect is simple. If the top four all win their groups, the four strongest sides will be kept apart in the group stage and will only meet from the semi-finals onwards. Every team still has to earn the right to be in that position, and the group stage can still throw up surprises. The draw in December will show how the groups fall.
