Portugal, Italy, Hungary and Sweden have been drawn in Group A in the elite round of UEFA qualifying for the first FIFA Futsal Women\u2019s World Cup\u2122, while Spain, France, Poland and Finland will comprise Group B. Italy and France will host the respective pools from 18 to 23 March, with the top two in each representing Europe at Philippines 2025.<\/p>\n
Group A
\nPortugal (3rd)
\nItaly (8th)
\nHungary (23rd)
\nSweden (22nd)<\/p>\n
FIFA Futsal Women\u2019s World Ranking positions in brackets<\/p>\n
Italy have reason aplenty for optimism. They began this year with back-to-back draws against the mighty Portugal, are on a 12-game winning run and, with Renata Adamatti, Bruna Borges and Sara Boutimah sizzling, scored 27 goals and conceded zero to conquer their main-round group in emphatic style. Francesca Salvatore\u2019s side will also have home advantage in the elite round.<\/p>\n
Portugal will nonetheless be favourites to top the group. Luis Conceicao\u2019s team have won three of their last four meetings with Spain and finished runners-up at the Fafe Tournament, where they gave Brazil a strict examination in an exhilarating 3-2 defeat. Fifo is one of the sport\u2019s finest and most multifunctional players, and has outstanding team-mates in the form of Ana Catarina, Ana Azevedo and Janice Silva.<\/p>\n
Hungary finished fourth at the last two UEFA Women\u2019s Futsal EUROs. Finding a way past the excellent Lilla Torma has proved a conundrum to top teams, while Viktoria Horvath can win games in an instant.<\/p>\n
Free-scoring Sweden are undoubtedly among the most entertaining teams on the planet. They will charge Linda Lundstrom, Rebecca Rolin and Susan Kiryo with earning them a top-two finish.<\/p>\n
Quotes
\n\u201cThey are three teams we\u2019ve already faced and know well. We believe Italy are among the best European women\u2019s futsal teams and, moreover, they will be playing at home. The game against Italy will probably be the most difficult. Hungary and Sweden are growing and also have a lot of quality. I believe the games in this group will be balanced, but I accept that us and Italy are the main candidates to reach the finals. We will do everything we can to make that happen.\u201d
\nLuis Conceicao, Portugal coach<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are three very capable teams. We\u2019ll have to study them well. They are teams that are strong physically. We\u2019ll have to prepare really well, because all three games will be finals. We have to win all our games to qualify and not depend on other results.\u201d
\nRenata Adamatti, Italy player<\/p>\n
\u201cFor us, just to be in the elite round, alongside the best teams in Europe, is a huge thing. We know it would be a great feat if we could somehow win one of the three matches. Qualifying for the World Cup would be a real miracle, but that doesn’t mean we\u2019ll be giving up. We will do our best. Every point we get would mean a lot to the team.\u201d
\nRebeka Fabian, Hungary player<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re definitely in a tough group with some really strong opponents, and we will need to be at our very best for every game. While the odds might not be on our side, we are only three games away from a World Cup spot and we are very hungry to get there! Anyone counting Sweden out will have to think again.\u201d
\nLinda Lundstrom, Sweden player<\/p>\n
Group B
\nSpain (2nd)
\nFrance (60th)
\nPoland (16th)
\nFinland (17th)<\/p>\n
FIFA Futsal Women\u2019s World Ranking positions in brackets<\/p>\n
France, on no less than their official debut earlier this month, stunned Ukraine, who had bagged bronze and silver from the last two EUROs. Pierre-Etienne Demillier\u2019s Bleues followed that upset up by reaching the elite round, where they will enjoy home advantage.<\/p>\n
Spain will be the overwhelming favourites to finish first having won all three EUROs. Claudia Pons can count on two of the planet\u2019s top performers in Anita Lujan and Peque, the sport\u2019s Best Women\u2019s Player for 2022, along with the fast-emerging Cordoba twins, Irene and Laura.<\/p>\n
Poland have won eight of their last 10 outings. They will entrust Andzelika Dabek, Agata Bala and Agata Sobkowicz with booking a Filipino adventure.<\/p>\n
Finland looked the part defensively and offensively in the main round. They have played Poland three times since the start of 2022, with all being very tight encounters. Jaakko Laitinen has stars such as Anna-Kaisa Hannuksela, Matilda Herranen, Sandra Lind and Emilia Jokisalo at his disposal, as well as 16-year-old phenom Stella Enwena.<\/p>\n
Quotes
\n\u201cIt\u2019s not an easy draw, with Spain the number-one team in Europe and number two in the world. There are two spots up for grabs, and one is almost sure to go to Spain. After that, we’ll be up against Poland, who we lost to twice pretty badly in September, and who are sixth in Europe. And Finland, who we also lost to and are seventh in Europe. We are relatively far behind them: 22nd in Europe and 60th in the world. I think everyone wanted to be drawn against us. But that doesn’t mean we won’t be ambitious. We’ve got a tiny chance of qualifying and we\u2019ll try to seize it. We’ll be lucky enough to be at home. That’s bound to be an advantage. We\u2019re hoping the crowd will turn out in force.\u201d
\nPierre-Etienne Demillier, France coach<\/p>\n
Global finals
\nThe maiden FIFA Futsal Women\u2019s World Cup will take place in the Philippines from 21 November to 7 December 2025. The host nation and New Zealand have already qualified.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Portugal, Italy, Hungary and Sweden have been drawn in Group A in the elite round of UEFA qualifying for the first FIFA Futsal Women\u2019s World Cup\u2122, while Spain, France, Poland and Finland will comprise Group B. Italy and France will host the respective pools from 18 to 23 March, with the top two in each […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":1039530,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20966],"tags":[9648,27192],"class_list":["post-1039527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fifa-news","tag-fifa","tag-fifa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1039527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1039527"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1039527\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1039530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1039527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1039527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/91varzeshi.ir\/portal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1039527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}