The 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup has been run and won. Congratulations to the new world champions, Spain. And congratulations also to England and Sweden for taking home the silver and bronze medals respectively.
When a World Cup ends, national federations invest significant time, effort and resources to learn the key lessons from the event, in an attempt to increase the likelihood that their senior national team can challenge for the next World Cup and at least the one after that.
From our vantage point, one of the things the 2023 Women's World Cup made clear is how quickly a team built on football intelligence, outstanding technique and creativity has ascended to the top of the women's game. And how quickly national teams built predominantly on physicality and athletic advantage came back to the pack, or failed to progress to the final.
The torch has been passed in the women's game. And Spain saw that coming.
For at least the past 10 years, Spain quietly invested in the development of high-potential youth female players, having identified those players as possessing the necessary qualities for elite performance in the long term. Intelligence, technique and creativity.
Spain will, of course, continue to do that. And so must be in the frame to retain the Women's World Cup trophy in 2027.
But in our view, there is a more likely Women's World Cup champion in 2027. Portugal.
In recent times, Portugal has been one of the most prodigious countries for the development of male footballers playing at the highest level of the sport. Portugal's developmental track record is plain for all to see.
What is less well known is that some of Portugal's most successful developmental clubs have, for some time, been quietly reconfiguring their youth development departments to ensure that their most experienced technical directors, coaches and mentors are moved from their male youth programs to their female youth programs.
In the group stage of the 2023 Women's World Cup, Portugal failed to progress (and eliminate the then-reigning champions, the United States) by less than the width of the goal post.
In 4 year's time, how much better are the Portugese players likely to be? We believe the answer is not only "a lot better", but also "even better than Spain's players and the other nation's players too".
Let's see how well our prediction ages. We only have to wait 4 years.