The 1995 FIFA Women's World Cup, the second edition of the

FIFA Women's World Cup The FIFA Women's World Cup is an international association football competition contested by the senior women's national teams of the members of Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the sport's international governing bod ...

, was held in Sweden and won by

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of ...

, who became the first European nation to win the Women's World Cup. The tournament featured 12 women's national teams from six continental confederations. The 12 teams were drawn into three groups of four and each group played a

round-robin tournament A round-robin tournament (or all-go-away-tournament) is a competition in which each contestant meets every other participant, usually in turn.''Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged'' (1971, G. & C. Me ...

. At the end of the group stage, the top two teams and two best third-ranked teams advanced to the knockout stage, beginning with the quarter-finals and culminating with the final at

Råsunda Stadium Råsunda Stadium (; also known as Råsunda Fotbollsstadion, Råsundastadion, Råsunda Football Stadium or just Råsunda) was the Swedish national football stadium. It was located in Solna Municipality in Stockholm and named after the district i ...

on 18 June 1995. Sweden became the first country to host both men's and women's World Cup, having hosted the men's in

1958 Events January * January 1 – The European Economic Community (EEC) comes into being. * January 3 – The West Indies Federation is formed. * January 4 ** Edmund Hillary's Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition completes the third ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by to ...

, and

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

made their debuts in the competition. The tournament also hosted as qualification for the

1996 Summer Olympics The 1996 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXVI Olympiad, also known as Atlanta 1996 and commonly referred to as the Centennial Olympic Games) were an international multi-sport event held from July 19 to August 4, 1996, in Atlanta, ...

, with the eight quarter-finalists being invited to the Olympics. In the second edition of the Women's World Cup, matches were lengthened to the standard 90 minutes, and three points were awarded for a win.

Summary

Bulgaria was originally awarded hosting rights for the tournament, but had to relinquish the rights and FIFA ended up awarding the tournament to Sweden. About 112,000 tickets were sold for the entire tournament. As a FIFA rules experiment, each team was allowed a two-minute time out each half. Norway won the 1995 title, with one in four Norwegians watching the game on television. Norway's team plane was escorted back to Oslo by two F-16s on their way to a victory celebration.

Venues

Teams

As in the previous edition of the FIFA Women's World cup, held in 1991, 12 teams participated in the final tournament. The teams were:

Squads

For a list of the squads that disputed the final tournament, see 1995 FIFA Women's World Cup squads.

Match officials

Notes

Draw

The draw for the group stage was held on 18 February 1995 in a public ceremony at the Elite Hotel Marina Plaza in Helsingborg, Sweden. The draw was conducted by

Sepp Blatter Joseph "Sepp" Blatter (born Josef Blatter; 10 March 1936) is a Swiss former football administrator who served as the eighth President of FIFA from 1998 to 2015. He has been banned from participating in FIFA activities since 2015 as a result o ...

, then the FIFA General Secretary, and assisted by Swedish internationals

Tomas Brolin Per Tomas Brolin (born 29 November 1969) is a Swedish former professional footballer who played as a forward or as a midfielder. At club level, he had a successful period with A.C. Parma during the early 1990s, winning the 1992 Coppa Italia, ...

and Kristin Bengtsson, winners of the 1994 Guldbollen and Diamantbollen, respectively. There was no television coverage of the draw.

Group stage

Group A

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Group B

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Group C

Group C started with back-and-forth 3–3 draw between the United States and China with the Chinese coming back from a 3–1 deficit. Denmark's opening 5–0 win over Australia, in which Sonia Gegenhuber was sent off in the 45th minute for the Aussies, ultimately led to their securing one of the best third place runner up spots as they would lose their next two matches. United States goalkeeper

Brianna Scurry Briana Collette Scurry (born September 7, 1971) is an American retired soccer goalkeeper, and assistant coach of the Washington Spirit . Scurry was the starting goalkeeper for the United States women's national soccer team at the 1995 World Cup ...

was sent off in the 88th minute of the second group game against

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. With all three substitutions used, U.S. manager

Tony DiCicco Anthony D. DiCicco Jr. (August 5, 1948 – June 19, 2017) was an American soccer player and coach and TV commentator. He is best known as the coach of the United States women's national soccer team from 1994 to 1999, during which time the team won ...

called upon striker Mia Hamm to play goalkeeper. Hamm made two saves over eight minutes of stoppage time to secure the 2–0 win. In the other game,

Angela Iannotta Angela Iannotta (born 22 March 1971) is an Italian Australian soccer coach and former player. As a forward, she represented Australia women's national association football team in the 1995 and 1999 FIFA Women's World Cups and played club foo ...

scored Australia's first-ever World Cup goal, but China defeated the Matildas 4–2. ---- ----

Ranking of third-placed teams

Knockout stage

Bracket

Quarter-finals

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Semi-finals

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Third place play-off

Final

Awards

The following awards were given at the conclusion of the tournament:Awards 1995
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Statistics

Goalscorers

Assists

Tournament ranking

References

External links

FIFA.com
FIFA Technical Report (Part 1)
an
(Part 2)SVT's open archive
{{DEFAULTSORT:1995 Fifa Women's World Cup

FIFA FIFA (; stands for ''Fédération Internationale de Football Association'' (French), meaning International Association Football Federation ) is the international governing body of association football, beach football and futsal. It was found ...

FIFA Women's World Cup tournaments International women's association football competitions hosted by Sweden Women's World Cup Sports competitions in Gävle Sports competitions in Västerås Sports competitions in Karlstad Sports competitions in Helsingborg June 1995 sports events in Europe Sports competitions in Solna