Tony Leighton, 2009/03/17 15:53:04 GMT
BBC SPORT
England have been handed a reasonably comfortable qualifying round draw for the 2011 Women's World Cup finals, to be staged in Germany.
Spain, Austria, Turkey and Malta will be England's opponents at the group stage, which will be the first part of their qualifying task.
There will be four guaranteed places for European qualifiers, along with the host nation who automatically qualify.
The eight group winners will go into play-offs to decide who progresses.
But before that conundrum England, who are 10th in the world rankings and one of the top eight qualifying group seeds, will face sides ranked well below themselves in their group.
The only team who could provide any real problems are Spain, ranked 20th and who England beat then drew with on their way to winning their Euro 2009 qualifying group.
Austria, ranked 37th in the world, were beaten 4-1 and 4-0 by Hope Powell's team in the 2007 World Cup qualifiers, while England have not met Turkey (64th) or Malta (99th) before.
England women's coach Hope Powell said: "It's interesting that we've drawn Spain again and they will undoubtedly be our biggest challenge in the group.
"Having played Austria in qualifying for the World Cup finals we know something about them, and added to the mix are Turkey and Malta, about whom we have much to learn.
"We cannot afford to be complacent with such a wide spectrum of teams of varying abilities and of our knowledge about them."
The group stage is scheduled to kick off on the third weekend in September, a week after the Euro 2009 final in Finland.
BBC SPORT
England have been handed a reasonably comfortable qualifying round draw for the 2011 Women's World Cup finals, to be staged in Germany.
Spain, Austria, Turkey and Malta will be England's opponents at the group stage, which will be the first part of their qualifying task.
There will be four guaranteed places for European qualifiers, along with the host nation who automatically qualify.
The eight group winners will go into play-offs to decide who progresses.
But before that conundrum England, who are 10th in the world rankings and one of the top eight qualifying group seeds, will face sides ranked well below themselves in their group.
The only team who could provide any real problems are Spain, ranked 20th and who England beat then drew with on their way to winning their Euro 2009 qualifying group.
Austria, ranked 37th in the world, were beaten 4-1 and 4-0 by Hope Powell's team in the 2007 World Cup qualifiers, while England have not met Turkey (64th) or Malta (99th) before.
England women's coach Hope Powell said: "It's interesting that we've drawn Spain again and they will undoubtedly be our biggest challenge in the group.
"Having played Austria in qualifying for the World Cup finals we know something about them, and added to the mix are Turkey and Malta, about whom we have much to learn.
"We cannot afford to be complacent with such a wide spectrum of teams of varying abilities and of our knowledge about them."
The group stage is scheduled to kick off on the third weekend in September, a week after the Euro 2009 final in Finland.
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