Who’s the perfect participant on the Girls’s World Cup?
We rank the highest 25 feminine soccer gamers who’re set to take over on the Girls’s World Cup 2019 in France. Merely, they’re the perfect of the perfect.
06/05/19
Within the 4 years for the reason that final Girls’s World Cup in Canada, the competitors and expertise amongst feminine footballers has gotten stronger — and extra world. The stage will likely be as large as ever when this 12 months’s match kicks off June 7 in Paris.
In our newest ESPN FC Rank, we polled our specialists to gauge which gamers will stand out in France.
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25. Shanice van de Sanden
NED 
Olympique Lyon ST
One other from the Lyon dynasty, Shanice van de Sanden is greatest identified for 2 issues: her blazing velocity and her trademark brilliant pink lipstick. One of many quickest gamers within the girls’s sport, Van de Sanden is an absolute handful to take care of on the correct wing for opposing full-backs on account of her tempo and ability. A participant who debuted for the Oranje at simply 16, she was a key member of the Netherlands’ victorious European Championship facet in 2017 and will likely be showing in her second World Cup this summer time. Van de Sanden, now 26, has 15 targets in 63 caps for the Netherlands, however it’s her skill to get in behind and create targets for others with crosses from the tip line that makes her such a harmful weapon.
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24. Danielle van de Donk
NED 
Arsenal MF
Usually overshadowed by nationwide workforce teammates Lieke Martens and Vivianne Miedema, Danielle van de Donk is likely one of the Netherlands’ most essential gamers, as she supplies steadiness to the midfield and does numerous tireless work when it comes to urgent. An entire midfielder, Van de Donk is simply as adept at stealing or successful the ball again as she is at going ahead and creating or scoring targets. The 27-year-old chipped in 11 targets and 6 assists this season at membership degree to assist lead Arsenal to the FA Girls’s Tremendous League title.
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23. Becky Sauerbrunn
USA 
Utah Royals FC CB
The defender has been a part of the NWSL’s “Greatest XI” workforce every season for the reason that league’s inception, first with FC Kansas Metropolis and now with the Utah Royals. At 34 years outdated when the World Cup begins, she stays the regular, quiet cornerstone of the U.S. again line. In reality, she is going to possible be the one holdover within the beginning lineup among the many group of defenders and goalkeeper who performed so properly within the 2015 World Cup. A second title would cement her place alongside the perfect the U.S. has ever produced on the place.
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22. Nilla Fischer
SWE 
VFL Wolfsburg CB
This would be the Sweden defender’s fourth World Cup, and she is going to deliver her 153 caps’ price of expertise to the match. This spectacular feat is on her outstanding home CV together with a Champions League title, three German titles, due to her spell at VfL Wolfsburg, and two Swedish league titles. Then there’s her World Cup bronze and Olympic silver. Phew. Get pleasure from watching her when you can. Fischer is now 34, and this will likely be her ultimate World Cup, however she’s nonetheless hopeful of including a fourth Olympics look subsequent 12 months.
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21. Caroline Graham Hansen
NOR 
FC Barcelona RW
Hansen, 24, made her debut for Norway’s nationwide workforce at age 16 and scored her first worldwide purpose the subsequent summer time. Since then, she has steadily climbed the world rankings, and she or he has the potential to be a top-10 participant. Hansen led the Bundesliga in assists in 5 seasons enjoying membership ball in Germany and just lately signed a two-year take care of FC Barcelona. Though she missed the 2015 World Cup with a knee harm, Hansen is hungry to assist Norway (the 1995 champs) this time.
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20. Alexandra Popp
GER VFL Wolfsburg ST
A striker identified for her physicality and flexibility, Popp, 28, has been a prime worldwide participant since 2014, when she received the primary of her two German Footballer of the Yr titles. A member of the 2016 Olympic gold-medal squad, Popp, who performs for VfL Wolfsburg within the UEFA Champions League, has her sights set on main Germany to its first Girls’s World Cup title. “If I win the World Cup, it might be the jewel within the crown,” she mentioned earlier this 12 months.
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19. Kim Little
SCO Arsenal MF
Arsenal playmaker Kim Little is Scotland’s heartbeat. She is extensively thought to be one of many world’s most interesting gamers and has overcome her justifiable share of adversity to be in France, having battled again from a yearlong absence brought on by an ACL harm and a fractured fibula on the finish of final 12 months. She was voted MVP within the Nationwide Girls’s Soccer League awards again in 2014, when she was at Seattle Reign FC, and she or he has the power to show matches on their head. Alongside Erin Cuthbert and Caroline Weir, Little, 28, and her Scotland teammates will guarantee they make a splash of their first World Cup.
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18. Crystal Dunn
USA 
North Carolina Braveness W/WB
The one query is the context during which she is ranked. Is she evaluated as an attacking participant, the position during which she excelled whereas scoring 12 targets and totaling eight assists for the reason that begin of final season because the Braveness ran roughshod over the NWSL? Or is it as an out of doors again, the position she has crammed for the U.S. for greater than a 12 months? Maybe the purpose is that one of many world’s most versatile gamers, Dunn, 26, must be ranked on her skill to do all of these issues.
17. Amel Majri
FRA Olympique Lyon MF/LB
Majri, who was named Participant of the Yr by France’s UNFP again in 2016, has been desirous to reclaim that kind on the worldwide stage since she missed the 2017 European Championship on account of harm. The 26-year-old notched 10 targets and 9 assists within the 2018-19 Division 1 Féminine season, every essentially the most amongst defenders. Going again to 2015, Majri and Lyon have received 4 consecutive trebles, and in her 9 seasons as an integral a part of a fearsome Lyon again line, Les Lyonnaises have allowed greater than six targets in league play solely as soon as. In 198 league matches, Majri’s Lyon have gone 187-9-2, scoring 1,zero10 targets and conceding solely 53 — virtually 20 scored for every allowed. If Majri and host France can yield even a fraction of that untold dominance this summer time, their first World Cup title is nigh.
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16. Saki Kumagai
JPN Olympique Lyon MF/D
Japan’s captain, Saki Kumagai, 28, spends her time within the grey space between defence and midfield however is likely one of the most achieved and gifted defensive midfielders within the sport. She completed 12th within the 2018 Ballon D’Or and is a part of the dominant Lyon facet that received the previous 4 Champions League titles. Her 103 caps will show very important if an inexperienced Japan squad is to achieve the ultimate for the third World Cup operating.
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15. Tobin Heath
USA 
Portland Thorns MF
She’s the one participant on the U.S. roster who has received World Cup, Olympic, NCAA and NWSL titles, and the 31-year-old Heath may solely now be enjoying the perfect soccer of her profession. Along with eight targets a 12 months in the past for Portland within the NWSL, she has 10 targets and 7 assists in 15 video games with the nationwide workforce for the reason that begin of 2018. Nonetheless the perfect one-on-one take-on participant on the U.S. roster, she has by no means been extra environment friendly in turning that artistry into manufacturing.
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14. Vivianne Miedema
NED Arsenal ST
How prolific a purpose scorer is Miedema? Nicely, she wants simply three targets to develop into the Netherlands’ report scorer with 60 targets. Did I point out she is simply 22 years outdated? The Netherlands No. 9, who already ranks among the many most feared strikers on the earth, has such a brilliant future and might be an actual contender for the Golden Boot in 2019. Miedema received the Silver Boot again on the 2017 Euros and this season took residence the PFA Gamers’ Participant of the Yr and FA WSL’s scoring title with Arsenal. Miedema has a zero.77 goals-per-game ratio (57 targets in 74 video games) for the nationwide workforce, so defenders will likely be preserving a really shut eye on her in France.
13. Christine Sinclair
CAN Portland Thorns F
Sinclair’s pursuit of the worldwide goal-scoring report does not really feel like a race in opposition to time. Whether or not or not the World Cup is the place the 35-year-old will get the 4 targets she wants to interrupt Abby Wambach’s report, Sinclair is enjoying at a degree that implies she’ll push the brand new report properly out of attain. The targets overshadow her excellence as a facilitator, not simply with a loaded Thorns roster but additionally for rising skills comparable to Janine Beckie, Nichelle Prince and Jordyn Huitema for Canada.
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12. Fran Kirby
ENG 
Chelsea F
Kirby introduced herself on the final World Cup, main then-England supervisor Mark Sampson to nickname her “mini Messi.” Kirby, 25, hated that nickname on the time. However over the previous 4 years, she has grown in self-belief and is now one of many world’s most deadly forwards. She scooped up a haul of private awards final 12 months, and although her 2019 has been interrupted by harm, she is one in every of England’s key gamers.
11. Lindsey Horan
USA Portland Thorns FW
She had quadriceps and hip points this spring and has but to play 90 minutes for the U.S. in 2019. However at 25, the reigning NWSL MVP is poised for a breakout World Cup if she’s at full energy. Launched to many when she bypassed a school scholarship to signal with Paris Saint-Germain out of highschool, Horan has matured into a classy box-to-box participant whose sport displays seven years in professional environments. Solely Sam Kerr scored extra NWSL targets in 2018, and solely Megan Rapinoe had extra USWNT assists.
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10. Megan Rapinoe
USA 
Reign FC MF
It is troublesome to consider that Rapinoe is a 12 months youthful getting into this World Cup than Abby Wambach was getting into the 2015 match. Removed from a veteran in her twilight, Rapinoe, 33, stays arguably an important participant within the U.S. lineup. A dedication to conditioning in her 30s makes her a presence not simply when the U.S. has the ball but additionally in successful it again. She has 13 targets and 17 assists for the U.S. since 2017 and 19 targets for Reign FC in that span.
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9. Marta
BRA 
Orlando Delight F
Probably the most well-known girls’s participant of all time, Marta is a single-name soccer icon, a six-time FIFA Girls’s Participant of the Yr award winner and the Girls’s World Cup all-time scoring chief, with 15 targets in 5 appearances. Now 33, Marta is probably going making her ultimate World Cup stand in France (she has mentioned she’ll play within the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo earlier than retiring), so each worldwide match she fits up for is must-see TV. The one accolades lacking from Marta’s résumé: World Cup and Olympic titles.
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eight. Wendie Renard
FRA Olympique Lyon D
Renard hails from the French island of Martinique, however she’s the bona fide Swiss military knife of Les Bleus. In the latest EURO, Olympics and former two World Cups, Renard is third in touches, aerial proportion and clearances, second in duel proportion and interceptions, and eighth in passing and tackling percentages amongst outfield gamers (min. 10 GP). Translation: There are few, if any, higher two-way defenders alive. Simply shy of 29, the two-time FIFA FIFPro World XI member and Lyon mainstay — with 13 straight Division 1 Féminine and 6 UEFA Girls’s Champions League titles to her credit score — has lengthy been heralded as such. However with fourth-place finishes on the 2011 World Cup and 2012 Olympics, main worldwide success has confirmed elusive. A World Cup triumph on residence soil could be an immortalizing clarion name for Renard.
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7. Eugenie Le Sommer
FRA Olympique Lyon MF
One of many world’s most prolific purpose scorers, the 30-year-old Le Sommer has amassed a club-record 257 targets for four-time reigning Champions League winners Lyon and one other 74 on the worldwide degree for France. An enormous-game participant and serial winner at membership degree, Les Bleues’ No. 9 would rise to nationwide hero standing if she had been in a position to ship host France its first main title.
6. Lucy Bronze
ENG Olympique Lyon MF/D
Bronze completed sixth within the 2018 Ballon D’Or and is arguably the world’s most interesting proper again. She is a key cog within the astonishing Olympique Lyonnais workforce, having joined them in 2017 from Manchester Metropolis, and with the semifinals and ultimate being performed in Lyon, Bronze, 27, will likely be hoping that her native information is required if England makes it to the ultimate phases. England may also make the most of her versatility throughout the match, as she will play in nearly each place.
5. Lieke Martens
NED | FC Barcelona | MF/F
The scorer of the Netherlands’ first World Cup purpose in 2015, Martens, like her nation, has taken huge strides ahead over the previous 4 years. The 2017 FIFA Girls’s Participant of the Yr, Martens, 26, has led the Netherlands to European Championship and Algarve Cup titles the previous two years and heads to France as the focus of the match’s greatest potential darkish horse. Martens bagged 14 targets and added 9 assists this previous season in main Barcelona to the Champions League ultimate and has already tallied 42 targets for the Oranje on the ripe outdated age of 26.
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four. Amandine Henry
FRA Olympique Lyon MF
Henry’s purpose and help numbers won’t ever leap off the web page, however watch her carefully throughout a match, and it shortly turns into clear why she is counted among the many greatest gamers on the earth. A midfielder with the flexibility to play in both the defensive or attacking midfield position, Henry is adept at successful the ball again, is extraordinarily composed on it and boasts a powerful vary of passing. After successful the Silver Ball because the second-best participant on the 2015 Girls’s World Cup, Henry, 29, is hungry for extra and stays a central determine for France in 2019.
three. Dzsenifer Marozsan
GER Olympique Lyon MF
Twice voted German Footballer of the Yr, the 27-year-old Marozsan led Olympique Lyon to a Champions League title, was a 2018 finalist for Greatest FIFA Girls’s Participant (she completed second behind Marta) and captained Germany to the 2019 Girls’s World Cup. But it surely was on the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro that the midfielder actually made her mark, scoring the deciding purpose within the ultimate and lifting Germany to its first girls’s soccer Olympic gold.
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2. Alex Morgan
USA Orlando Delight ST
After an injury-riddled stretch of her 20s, together with a 2015 World Cup during which she was lower than full energy, Morgan is within the midst of a renaissance as her 30th birthday approaches. She’s nonetheless the fleet-footed striker who’s harmful operating onto balls in open house, however she has grown into an all-around ahead who can maintain the ball up, play out extensive and act because the tip of the spear for U.S. strain defensively.
1. Sam Kerr
AUS 
Chicago Crimson Stars ST
Kerr is essentially the most prolific purpose scorer within the girls’s sport. The profession scoring chief within the NWSL (during which she performs for the Chicago Crimson Stars) and Australia’s W-League (during which she captains the Perth Glory), in addition to for the Matildas, the 25-year-old is shattering limitations and popularizing the ladies’s sport in Australia like by no means earlier than. Hers is the top-selling jersey — males’s or girls’s — within the nation, and pictures of her exuberant roundoff backflip purpose celebrations are plastered on billboards round Oz.