New Zealand Women v Norway Women

New Zealand Women vs Norway Women Preview

Eden Park provides the venue for this opening game of the FIFA Women's World Cup with co-hosts, New Zealand, taking on the favourites in Group A, Norway, who are highly fancied to finish top of this four-nation group that also includes the likes of Phillipines and Switzerland.

New Zealand can expect vociferous and enthusiastic support from their home crowd but there's little to suggest that this support is based upon a sequence of solid results leading up this tournament, rather a case of national pride as The Kiwis have produced a long run of poor results as part of their World Cup preparations.

Having managed to grind out just the one win from their previous 12 friendly internationals which came in the form of a 2-0 home win against Vietnam, New Zealand look to have their work cut out from the very start of this upcoming World Cup especially as they have been handed no fewer than nine defeats within this period as well.

Despite being the strongest nation in the Oceania category, New Zealand have yet to register a win in any of their previous World Cup campaigns, losing 12 of their previous 15 World Cup games and this sort of form does not bode well for this group opener with Norway.

By contrast, Norway hold a FIFA ranking of 12th in the world and they are heavy favourites to not only win Group A but to also go deep in the tournament although they have also struggled to pick up positive results lately, winning just once in their last seven matches in all competitions.

That win came in the shape of a 1-0 home win against Uruguay in February's Tournoi de France but defeats to France, Denmark and Spain will have the Norwegian camp and coach, Hege Riise, on notice as they look to forget about recent problems and get their World Cup campaign off to a winning start.

However, Norway will be keen to replicate the sort of form which saw them breeze through the World Cup European qualifying section which resulted in Norway finishing top of Group F and remaining unbeaten throughout the group campaign.

An impressive haul of nine wins and a draw saw Norway clear winners of the group and six points clear of runners-up, Belgium, while also scoring a total of 47 goals and conceding just two in reply as Risse's side also kept a total of eight clean sheets in the process as well.

New Zealand W v Norway W Verdict

New Zealand have failed to score in nine of these previous 15 World Cup games and this looks to be a potentially big stumbling block against a Norwegian side who possessed a particularly strong defensive unit during qualification.

Anything other than a comfortable win for Norway would be considered an upset in this opening game of the tournament.

Therefore, our main bet will be Norway win & Both Teams To Score No @ 1.90

Other side bets worth considering:

Norway win & Under 2.5 goals @ 3.50

Correct score: Norway 2-0 @ 6.50