Strangest facts and stories from Women's World Cup history

South American teams have been a fixture of the Men’s World Cup since the beginning, literally, as the first one was held in Uruguay and won by the host nation. Brazil and Argentina have multiple titles to their names. And yet the 1991 Women’s World Cup put into stark relief the lack of infrastructure for women’s soccer on the continent at the time. Not only did just one team, Brazil, compete, but it also qualified from a tournament that featured only three South American teams. Brazil played a game against Chile, a game against Venezuela, won both, and that was that.

We call the event the Women’s World Cup now, but back in 1991 FIFA was a little wary about using the “World Cup” name for this fledging tournament. Instead, we got a tournament named after candy. The official name of the event was the FIFA World Championship for Women’s Football for the M&M’s Cup. Just rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it?

You know a soccer game is 90 minutes, plus added time as needed. However, this was not true at the 1991 Women’s World Cup. Back then the women only played 80 minutes per game. Soon thereafter, they were able to get 10 minutes added to make their games just as long as the men’s.

Hosting the World Cup is a nice honor. Plus, your team automatically qualifies as hosts. The 1995 Women’s World Cup was supposed to be held in Bulgaria. Alas, it was not meant to be. The European nation had to give up the rights to host the tournament, which was then moved to Sweden. Bulgaria didn’t qualify for the tournament.

If it’s not a Winter Olympics event, Norway doesn’t tend to be all that good. And yet, the Norwegians turned out to be early powerhouses in the world of women’s soccer. The Norse team romped through the tournament, winning all three games in the group stage, scoring 17 goals and conceding none. The team's first real challenge came in the semifinals, where it faced the United States, the defending champs. Norway got the 1-0 win and then took Germany down in the finals to complete the perfect tournament.

In 1999, the United States pulled out all the stops when it hosted the World Cup. This included musical performances. The opening ceremonies featured a promising young band called 'N Sync and the largely forgotten B*witched. Meanwhile, Jennifer Lopez didn’t just perform at the closing ceremonies. She also used the opportunity to record a music video for her song “Let’s Get Loud.”

Norway, the defending champs, had remained a juggernaut to start the tournament, beating Canada 7-1 and Japan 4-0 in the group stage. In the quarterfinals they took down Sweden 3-1. It seemed like Norway would be on their way to repeat. Then the semifinals happened. China didn’t just beat the Norwegians but trounced them 5-0.

If you remember any moment from a Women’s World Cup, it’s this one. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t offbeat. After Chastain converted her penalty kick to end the shootout against China and win the title for the United States, she celebrated by ripping off her jersey. Of course, she was wearing a sports bra, but men take off their jerseys to celebrate all the time. Nevertheless, the site of a woman removing her shirt on the field to celebrate was certainly a new one for most sports fans.

China, which had hosted the inaugural Women’s World Cup in 1991, was supposed to host in 2003 as well. Then the SARS outbreak happened. Do you remember when fear of SARS infiltrated the media? Because of it, the World Cup was moved from China. Since the United States had the existing infrastructure to host a tournament on short notice, the country was home to its second Women’s World Cup in a row. China was awarded the 2007 World Cup instead.

Germany won the 2003 tournament and ended up winning in 2007 as well, the only team to win back-to-back Women’s World Cups. Nobody was surprised that Germany won after slaughtering Argentina to the tune of an 11-0 win in its opening match. At the time, it was the most goals a team had ever scored in a Women’s World Cup. Obviously, that no longer is the record, after the USWNT beat Thailand 13-0 in its first game of the 2019 event.

Eggers Nielsen played 118 games for Denmark, scoring 26 goals for the Danes. She had to practice patience at the Women’s World Cup though. Eggers Nielsen holds the record for the longest drought between goals in the tournament. She scored during the 1995 World Cup and then didn’t score again until the 2007 tournament. It was a period of 12 years and 98 days between goals.

The United States is a powerhouse in most sports, including women’s soccer. North Korea, on the other hand, is not primarily known for its sports. These are also two nations that, politically, have rarely seen eye to eye. It was a heated contest, and a somewhat shocking one, as North Korea managed to pull off a 2-2 tie against the Americans, who had to come from behind to secure the tying point.

The 2011 Women’s World Cup was the first tournament for Colombia, but it didn’t go well for its goalie Yineth Varon. She tested positive for a banned substance, and after her “B” sample also proved to be positive, she got a two-year ban. However, that paled in comparison to what happened with the North Korean team. Two players tested positive for doping prior to their final game of the group stage. Then the entire team was tested, and three more players were nabbed for doping. This led to North Korea being banned from the 2015 tournament.

Having its goalie banned for doping was a bad moment for Colombia, but it bounced back to have a great moment in the 2015 World Cup. Colombia was one of the lower-ranked teams in the field, while France was third, according to FIFA. As such, jaws dropped when the South American squad beat France 2-0. Many consider this the biggest upset in Women’s World Cup history.

Canada got to host the 2015 Women’s World Cup, but that decision was not without controversy. Soccer is a sport played on natural grass, but FIFA decided to use artificial turf for this tournament. Yes, the 2015 Women’s World Cup was like baseball in the ‘80s and not in a good way. Artificial turf can tear you up, but more than that the fields got absolutely scorching. Sideline reporters were quick to bust out the heat gauges to let us know how hot the fields were getting. Nobody was happy.

2015 was Ecuador’s first Women’s World Cup appearance. It didn’t go great. It allowed 17 goals while only scoring just once. That goal, on a penalty, came from Angie Ponce in a 10-1 loss to Switzerland. Ponce may have been happy to score that goal, but in that game she also picked up not one but two own goals.

We’re shouting out a couple of age records for this entry, even if they came at different times. First, there’s Nigeria’s Ifeanyi Chiejine, who was the youngest player in tournament history at the age of 16 years and 34 days. On the other side of the coin is America’s Christie Pearce, then known as Christie Rampone. Her record of being the oldest player was bested this year by Brazil’s Formiga, but at 40 years, 11 days Pearce is still the oldest person ever in a final.

Here’s something weird from the 2019 Women’s World Cup. The mascot is a chicken named Ettie, which is odd enough. However, what takes this to the next level is that canonically Ettie is the child of Footix. Footix is, of course, the rooster that was the mascot of the 1998 Men’s World Cup, which also took place in France. Yes, we now have mascot children. Sports can be strange sometimes.