Monica Iheakam
Nigeria U-20 Women’s team, Falconets has been placed in pot 2 for the France 2018 FIFA Women’s World Cup draws.
The final draws to be held at Rennes Opera House, on Thursday 8th March, International Women’s Day was announced by FIFA on Tuesday.
FIFA’s Chief Women’s Football Officer, Sarai Bareman and Group leader for FIFA’s Women’s Tournaments, Rhiannon Martin will perform the draws.
The 16 qualified teams were allocated to four Pots of four teams each based on a ranking built according to past sporting performance.
The ranking was based on the points obtained in the last five FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cups (3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 for a loss).
The ranking used to build the pots was based on the points obtained at the 2016, 2014 , 2012, 2010 and the 2008 FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cups.
To enable the ranking to accurately reflect current form, the greatest importance was given to results of the last World Cups. To a lesser degree, attention was also paid to results from previous years. The system uses five cycles as the points earned in one World Cup decline linearly within the past 5 cycles
In addition, 5 points bonus were added to each of the Confederations Champions wining the qualifying tournament.
Based on the above mentioned ranking, the three top teams and the host were allocated to Pot 1, the following 4 teams to Pot 2 and so on.
Pot 1: France, Germany, Korea DPR, Japan
Pot 2: USA, Nigeria, Mexico, New Zealand
Pot 3: Brazil, Spain, Ghana, China PR
Pot 4: England, Paraguay, Haiti, Netherlands