The group stage at the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup is in full swing, which means it’s time for FOX Sports soccer analyst Alexi Lalas to share his first batch of power rankings for the tournament.
Three favored powerhouse teams that had impressive debuts took the top three spots — but none are the two-time defending champion United States, which slipped to No. 4 despite a solid 3-0 victory over Vietnam to start its campaign.
“This is just a snapshot,” Lalas said. “This is not that these are the best teams in the world forever, just as we stand right now. Just because you score goals doesn’t mean that you’re automatically at the top, even though we have some teams that scored a lot of goals.”
That said, here are Lalas’s top 10 teams in the World Cup so far, along with each’s squads’ opener result.
1. Spain: Defeated Costa Rica, 3-0
2. Germany: Defeated Morocco, 6-0
3. Brazil: Defeated Panama, 4-0
4. United States: Defeated Vietnam, 3-0
Spain, Germany lead Alexi Lalas’ World Cup Power Rankings
5. Japan: Defeated Zambia, 5-0
6. England: Defeated Haiti, 1-0
7. Australia: Defeated Ireland, 1-0
8. Sweden: Defeated South Africa, 2-1
9. Netherlands: Defeated Portugal, 1-0
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10. Haiti: Lost to England, 1-0
The group stage continues Monday (10 p.m. ET on FS1 and the FOX Sports app) with Colombia taking on South Korea to kick off a full week of group-stage games.
[Related: FOX Sports Insider Martin Rogers‘ Women’s World Cup power rankings]
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