Can she dream? The path of the women's national football team in the World Cup playoffs
The FIFA Women's World Cup will open in Brazil on June 24, 2027, and the Israel national team hopes to be there. The team has secured its place in the European playoff stage, where it will compete for one of the last tickets to the prestigious tournament. The World Cup in Brazil will be the tenth edition of the Women's World Cup, and the last to include 32 teams before the planned expansion to 48 teams in 2031.
The FIFA Women's World Cup will open in Brazil on June 24, 2027, and the Israel national team hopes to be there. The team has secured its place in the European playoff stage, where it will compete for one of the last tickets to the prestigious tournament. The World Cup in Brazil will be the tenth edition of the Women's World Cup, and the last to include 32 teams before the planned expansion to 48 teams in 2031.
How will the playoff stage work?
The European playoff matches will take place in two rounds between October and December 2026, with the participation of 32 teams divided into two paths. Israel will play in the second path, intended for teams from League B. In this path, the teams that finished in the last places in League A and the winners of the groups from League B will be drawn against the teams that finished in second and third places in League B, including Israel.
The team, which finished in third place in group No. 3 in League B, will face the women's national team of Switzerland in the first round, which finished in first place in group No. 2 in the same league. The meetings in this round will be held in a home-and-away format in October.
The winners of the first round will advance to the second round, which will take place in November and December, where the winners of path 1 will face the winners of path 2 in decisive home-and-away matches for a ticket to the World Cup. Another team that does not qualify directly will receive a last chance in the intercontinental playoffs. At this stage, after the first qualifying round, four group winners from League A — Denmark, France, Spain, and Germany — have already secured direct qualification to the tournament.
The global situation and hosting in Brazil
Besides the host Brazil and the four qualifiers from Europe, North Korea from Asia, as well as Algeria, Morocco, Cameroon, and Malawi from Africa, have also secured their places among others. The matches in Brazil will be held at eight different stadiums, all of which were also used in the 2014 Men's World Cup. The largest stadium selected is the legendary Maracanã in Rio de Janeiro, which holds 78,838 seats, and which previously hosted the Men's World Cup final and the final of the women's Olympic tournament.
