The women’s world cup has started and is being hosted in Canada. Top teams are back, like the winners of the 2011 world cup, Japan, and runner ups like U.S, Sweden, and France. Although these teams were good in the last World Cup, other competitors are stepping up their game and closing down on advancements. For teams that are most likely to move up, like U.S and Germany, making mistakes is prohibited and securing their placement into the next round is necessary. After their 10-0 win against the Ivory Coast, the women’s German national team got certain looks from unexpected sponsors and voted one of the top teams to advance. On the other hand, the U.S women’s team won 3-1 against top contender Australia in an action packed game, having Hope Solo(goalkeeper)get a lot of talk in good and bad ways. Talks about her past arrest for violence had some speculating on her role in the World Cup, while others found that her being the captain for the U.S is a big morale boost. Other teams such as Cameroon and Brazil showed us that they can compete at the highest level of play and do what it takes to take home the trophy. Overall theWomen’s World Cupthis year is going to be one of the greatest, having unseen teams step up and make themselves distinguishable. Personally, I believe that the U.S is going to take home the gold this year due to their ability to move the ball quickly and make other teams work for it. As they lost in the finals of the last World Cup, the U.S is going to be quick to make sure that they don’t let that happen again. Having already dominated a big contender, Australia, the U.S now has to face Sweden tomorrow. Abby Wombach, who is the U.S leading striker, showed in the last game that she was a bit rusty. Missing chance after chance, people didn’t know whether or not the U.S could do anything to score. Megan Rapinoe then proceeded to score 2 goals, letting people see what she could do with the ball and how she would contribute to the U.S team. As said before, Hope Solo is another key figure, having saved shot after shot increasing frustration throughout the Australians. My predictions of the top competitors are Germany, U.S, Brazil, and Cameroon, but the U.S is going to finish where they left off last time.