Group A
France: Wendie Renard
Wendie Renard grew up in Martinique, an overseas region of France in the Caribbean, where she was always playing soccer with the boys, using goal posts made of shoes and kicking anything that would roll, from balls to plastic bottles.
It was rare for girls to play soccer in Martinique, but Renard’s family — particularly the women — pushed her to play, especially after her father died to cancer when she was 8. Her aunt was a referee; her mother never turned down an opportunity to watch a match.
Getting noticed as a women’s footballer in France is difficult. Doing so in Martinique, thousands of miles away from the mainland, is nearly impossible. But Renard was determined from a young age. At 14, she was given a trial at the famed Clairefontaine academy, where the likes of Thierry Henry, Kylian Mbappé and William Gallas once trained. But she didn’t make the cut.
In stepped Olympique Lyon, the most dominant force in women’s football in Europe. Another trial, another chance. This time, at the age of 16, she made the squad. She earned her way into the Lyon lineup and then the French national team. Now, she’s arguably the best defender in the world, having won four Champions League crowns.
Heading into the 2019 Women’s World Cup, Renard has more than 100 caps and 20 goals for her national team.
Not bad for an island girl from the Caribbean.
South Korea: Ji So-yun
South Korea’s women’s national team hasn’t enjoyed the consistent success and World Cup qualification as its respective men’s team, which has qualified for every World Cup since 1986. In fact, North Korea has often outshined its southern neighbor, at least until it was banned from the 2015 Women’s World Cup.
But the Taegeuk Ladies have been on the rise in the last decade, not coincidentally coinciding with the arrival of Ji So-yun.
Ji, a 28-year-old No. 10, is already the country’s top goal scorer of all time. At the age of 15 years and 282 days, she became the youngest goal scorer in the history of the national team, netting not once but twice against Chinese Taipei at the 2006 Asian Games.
The creative midfielder has been a lynchpin for South Korea, appearing more than 100 times and ranking among the top three in all-time appearances for her country. And more uniquely, she’s done it while playing abroad.
While most South Korean national team members play domestically, Ji is one of two Taegeuk Ladies who play in the FA Women’s Super League in England.
Ji first blazed her path into Europe in 2014, when she became the first South Korean to appear in the FA WSL. She made an immediate impact, helping Chelsea to the 2014 league title.
The creative and technically gifted Ji has been named South Korea’s Women’s Footballer of the Year a record four times in its eight-year existence, including also being named the Asian Footballer of the Year in 2013.
With Ji in the squad, South Korea has steadily improved on the world stage. The Taegeuk Ladies reached the Round of 16 at the Women’s World Cup for the first time in 2015. With Ji leading the way, South Korea could be the surprise of Group A.
Norway: Caroline Graham Hansen
Norway is home to the best player in the world, Ada Hegerberg. But she won’t be playing for the her country at the Women’s World Cup this summer. Hegerberg has quit the national team to make a statement against unequal treatment for women footballers in Norway, despite the fact the country became the first ever to pay their men and women equally.
Norway, which in 1995 put forth what was arguably the most dominant World Cup campaign ever to claim its only title, will have Hegerberg’s shadow looming over the tournament. But the Grasshoppers, as the team is called, won’t be without star power.
One such rising star is Caroline Graham Hansen, a 24-year-old midfielder/winger for Wolfsburg in the Bundesliga.
Hansen joined Wolfsburg, the best women’s club in Germany, in 2014 and has scored more than 30 goals for the back-to-back league champions. Recently, she’s become indispensable for Norway, particularly with the absence of Hegerberg’s goal scoring.
When she’s not listening to Green Day or studying medicine off the pitch, Hansen is a handful for defenders. The Oslo native missed the 2015 Women’s World Cup through injury, but she was named the best player at the 2019 Algarve Cup, which Norway won for the first time since 1998. She scored in the final, a 3-0 win over Poland.
Alongside players like Maren Mjelde, Isabell Herlovsen and Emilie Haavi, Hansen hopes to show the world Norway is more than just Hegerberg as the country goes for its first major title since claiming gold at the 2000 Olympics.
Nigeria: Asisat Oshoala
Asisat Oshoala is a three-time African Women’s Footballer of the Year recipient — and she’s only 24.
A former Arsenal and Liverpool player currently on loan from Dalian Quanjian at Barcelona, Oshoala is a keen forward who has long been a part of Nigeria’s national team success, even at the youth level.
But she wasn’t always a striker.
As a child, she played with boys in a six-a-side team. They told her to just stay back and pass the ball forward because she couldn’t score goals. But in the final, she dribbled past a couple players to score the only goal of the match. Ever since, she’s been a prolific goal scorer, though she’s madae appearances in midfield and even at center back when needed.
Oshoala debuted at the 2012 U-20 Women’s World Cup, reaching the semifinals. She then led the Super Falcons to the final of the same tournament two years later in Canada to be named the best player of the tournament. Back in Canada for the 2015 Women’s World Cup at the age of 20, she scored in a 3-3 draw with Sweden to earn Nigeria’s only point in a tough group alongside Australia and the U.S.
A devout Muslim who’s was nicknamed “Seedorf” as a child for comparisons to Clarence Seedorf and later “Superzee,” Oshoala is all about using the hashtag #HappyGirlAlways.
“It’s my life philosophy,” Oshoala has said. “I consider myself a happy girl, because whatever situation I find myself in, I try to be happy.”
