PNG’s route to World Cup revealed
The Papua New Guinea women’s national team will have to get past two teams to reach the 2023 Women’s World Cup.
The draw was held at FIFA headquarters in Zürich, Switzerland earlier this week.
PNG are Oceania’s representative in the intercontinental playoff, as winners of the OFC Women’s Nations Cup earlier this year.
New Zealand are automatically qualified as hosts, alongside Australia.
PNG managed to avoid European side Portugal and 2019 World Cup participants Cameroon, Chile and Thailand.
Instead the Lakatois will face Panama in a semi-final, before the winner play the winner of the match between Chinese Taipei and Paraguay.
Panama, a country in Central America, comes to the playoffs thanks to a third placed finish in Group B of the CONCACAF W Championship.
The intercontinental playoff will be held in New Zealand in February 2023.
The other groups:
Group A: Cameroon v Thailand, winner will face Portugal
Group B: Senegal v Haiti, winner will face Chile
The three group winners will be drawn from Pot 4 when the World Cup group stage draw takes later in October.
In a previous version of this article it was stated that PNG would play Paraguay. This is not correct, and the correct team is Panama. The article has been amended to the correct country.
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