The USWNT suffered their earliest exit in World Cup history when they were edged by Sweden in the Round of 16. The back-to-back defending, four-time overall tournament champions are the winningest program since the Women's World Cup's inception in 1991.
But we found that the U.S. doesn't have a city inside the top two of World Cup-winning athlete producers. The world-leading city is Frankfurt, Germany with four players penciled between Germany's 2003 and 2007 championship rosters—Sandra Smisek and Birgit Prinz belonging to both.
Japan's 2011 championship team had three players from Yokohama, Japan, which checked in as the second-most. Yokohama's population outsizes Frankfurt by over 3 million.
With two native athletes to have ever won a World Cup, there were only five cities: Asker, Norway; Euskirchen, Germany; Sakai, Japan; St. Louis, USA and Utsunomiya, Japan. All of these cities have a 2023 population below 800,000. Also, these are the only four countries to ever have won since 1991.
Germany failed to qualify past the group stages in 2023, while Norway was also eliminated in the Round of 16. Japan remains of the four former champions to face Sweden in the Quarterfinal on August 11.
Becky Sauerbrunn is the only American to have won a World Cup more than once as a member of the 2015 and 2019 teams. Of the five largest cities in the U.S., only two players have won: Christen Press (Los Angeles, 2015 and 2019) and Kristine Lilly (New York City, 1991 and 1999).
We created this map to display the World Cup champion producing cities across the globe for visualization.
Our research found 27 total players to have won two times. No one in Women's World Cup history has won more.
In terms of cities with the most players to ever compete for a World Cup, Auckland, New Zealand churned out 22—all of which from 2007 onward. Auckland has had seven players to compete in three-or-more World Cups—led by Annalie Longo who played in five consecutively from 2007-2023.
São Paulo, Brazil follows with 14 players since 1991. São Paulo was the only top-five largest city in the world to have double-digits in past participants. Shanghai, China was the next top-five city on our list with seven players to represent.
Panama City, Panama and Sydney, Australia tie for third with 13. This is the first year that Panama has qualified, so everyone of the 13 athletes from Panama City are current.
Here's what the map optics look like for cities producing the most World Cup participants.
San Diego and San Jose tie as home to the most U.S. participants with five athletes each. There are 10 total to have participated between the big five of Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Houston and Phoenix.
Brazil's Formiga has played in the most of all time between both the women and men at seven from 1995-2019. The Brazilians have qualified for the tournament in all nine years, but has come up with two runners-ups and zero wins. They failed to qualify for the Round of 16 in 2023.
