With the Women’s World Cup just over two weeks away, I want to return to the remarkable month of women’s international soccer that took place a year ago. This summer, 32 teams will meet in Australia and New Zealand, competing in 64 games to determine the next world champion. It is a remarkable event, and the expansion from 24 to 32 teams is a sign of the growth of the women’s game in recent years. But to really get a full sense of the depth of that expansion, it’s worth returning to the remarkable month of women’s football that took place last July.

With the 2022 World Cup moved to Winter and two years of pandemic further rearranging international fixtures, July of 2022 became a remarkable month of women’s international football. In addition to the Women’s Euros, hosted by England and undeniably the month’s premier event, CAF, CONCACAF, CONMEBOL, and OFC all hosted tournaments to select participants for the 2023 Women’s World Cup (and for the 2024 Summer Olympics). Only the AFC was missing, whose Women’s Asian Cup had been held in India from late January to early February.

Even without the 28 games played in that tournament, it meant that July saw 56 nations competing in 117 international women’s matches: 31 in the Women’s Euros, 16 in CONCACAF’s W Championship, 25 in the Copa América Femenina, 28 in the Women’s Africa Cup of Nations, and 17 in the OFC’s Women’s Nations Cup. While 7 of those games were theoretically consolations matches, all but one of them—the OFC’s Nations Cup 3^rd place match—had qualification implications for either the 2023 World Cup or the 2024 Olympics.

While I wrote several posts on some of these games last summer (including compiling links to highlights of all 117 games), I want to revisit last July more fully as a way of preparing for the upcoming World Cup–and also in recognition of the significance of that month in its own right. It was a month worth remembering.

Over the next two weeks, I am planning on rolling out an account of all 117 games from July 2022, weaving together all five competitions in an effort to capture the feel of the month as a whole, though the links below will allow you to skip to the next stage of each individual competition if you prefer. Time permitting, I’ll also add a brief account of the Women’s Asian Cup from February 2022 and the Inter-Confederation Playoffs from February 2023, tying up all the loose ends between this remarkable month of football and the 2023 World Cup this summer.

Up Next: Women’s Africa Cup of Nations
Jump to: W Championship | Euros | Copa América Femenina
OFC Women’s Nations Cup