Following a three year dormancy on the international circuit, the Lady Jaguars, the senior women’s football programme, is scheduled to be featured in the official 2023 FIFA World Cup Qualification draw Saturday.
This was confirmed by GFF Communications Officer Keegan Williams during a brief remark with Stabroek Sport yesterday.
According to Williams, the official first round draw of the Women’s 2023 FIFA World Cup Qualifier is penciled to occur on Saturday and it will identify the opposition that the Lady Jaguars will oppose in their bid to qualify for the second round of the event.
He further explained, “The draw for the World Cup Qualifiers is scheduled to occur on Saturday, the women’s World Cup is scheduled to commence in November of this year. After the draw, the team will know who exactly they have to play.”
The 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup is scheduled to be the 9th edition of the Women’s World Cup. The tournament will be jointly hosted by Australia and New Zealand and is scheduled to occur from July 20th-August 20th 2023.
The 2023 edition will witness the event expanding from 24 teams to 32 participants. The United States are the defending champions going into the competition, having won the previous two tournaments in 2015 and 2019.
Potential members of the local cadre of Lady Jaguars are currently in training at the GFF National Training Center in Providence. In the 2018 FIFA World Cup Qualification tournament, host nation Guyana failed to progress to the second round after finishing in second place in group-E.
The Lady Jaguars ended on five points from their allotted three matches, following a record of one win and two stalemates. Guyana drew with eventual group winner Bermuda 2-2, before defeating Suriname 6-1. In their final fixture, Guyana battled a scoreless result with Barbados in a must-win encounter.
The Lady Jaguars are currently ranked 88th in the world following the latest official rankings posted by the world governing body FIFA on June 25th.
According to a release from FIFA, approximately 56 nations have been active albeit in a non-competitive manner, since the previous ranking published in the month of May. There have been several changes on the list despite the dormancy of many members.
The Lady Jaguars maintain their 1244 points. They are sandwiched between 87th placed Senegal and 89th positioned Tonga and Cuba respectively. The team was initially removed from the FIFA rankings owing to their dormancy on the international football circuit.
According to FIFA, national teams are relegated to the status of unranked or inherit a non-ranked standing, if they fail to feature in several competitive matches or have not competed and are inactive for the duration of 18 months.
FIFA elaborated, “Teams not having played more than five matches against officially ranked teams and/or inactive for more than 18 months and therefore do not appear on the table.”
The Lady Jaguars previous fixture occurred on May 28th 2018 at the National Track and Field Center, Leonora against Barbados during the CONCACAF Women’s Qualifiers. Prior to their unranked listing, the Lady Jaguars were positioned on 88th, which is their current placement. However, the non-ranking rule has been amended as an unranked status is only acquired following 48 months or four years of inactivity, as well as no matches held against ranked opposition.
The Lady Jaguars highest ever ranking was 76th in March 2017. Their worst ever placement on the world ladder was 92nd in December 2015. FIFA World Cup champion and CONCACAF giant, the United States of America, maintain their position atop the rankings. The lowest ranked team is Mauritius at 167th.
