Aged 41 years and 98 days, Formiga stepped onto the pitch in Grenoble on Sunday and without even kicking the ball the unassuming Brazilian wrote a new page in Women’s World Cup history.<\/b>
\nThe oldest record breaker
When Formiga made her World Cup debut against Japan on June 7,1995,150 of the players who will be in France for this year’s tournament were yet to be born.
Not only has she broken the record for the most separate World Cup’s appeared in by either a male or female player, but she also surpassed American Christie Rampone’s record by becoming the competition’s oldest ever player.
The Paris Saint-Germain midfielder is also third in the all-time appearance standings having appeared in 24 Women’s World Cup matches.
Top scorer
Five-time world player of the year Marta has won almost everything there is to win in football.
But although this is the 33-year-old’s fifth World Cup, she has found that World Cup title elusive, coming closest in 2007 when she finished as a runner-up.
The Brazilian has had a plenty of goalscoring success at the World Cup though, as she’s scored 15 goals in her 17 matches at the finals.
Next closest is Germany’s Birgit Prinz and USA’s Abby Wambach who both have 14 goals at World Cups.
Highest attendance
Whilst recent World Cups have attracted bigger TV audiences, the record attendance is still held by the 1999 World Cup finals.
Seen by many as a watershed moment for women’s football, the 1999 World Cup tournament still holds records for the highest total attendance (1.194 million) and highest average attendance (37,319 per match).
Alongside the 90,185 people that saw the USA beat China in the final, 17.9 million viewers in the US tuned in for the final — the largest TV audience for a soccer match in the country’s history until a group stage match in the 2014 men’s World Cup, which drew 18.2 million, and the 2015 final, which drew 25.4 million.
Caps
Canada forward Christine Sinclair made her international debut in 2000 aged just 16.
When the squads for this year’s tournament were announced, Sinclair had racked up 282 caps for Canada — the highest of any active international player.
To put this in perspective, that’s more than the cumulative total of all 23 Jamaica players. The USA squad has an unparalleled 1,893 caps and includes eight centurions.
Quickest treble
During the 2015 World Cup final, Carli Lloyd scored a 13-minute hat-trick, but that isn’t the fastest hat-trick we’ve seen at a World Cup.
In Switzerland’s 10-1 hammering of Ecuador in 2015, Fabienne Humm scored a five-minute hat-trick, scoring in the 47th, 49th and 52nd minute.
Humm’s triple also eclipses the World Cup record in the men’s format of the game, as Laszlo Kiss bagged a seven-minute hat-trick against El Salvador in 1982.
Keeping opponents at bay
A key part of any title-winning team is having a dominant goalkeeper — just look at the difference Alisson has made at Liverpool after arriving from Roma last season.
For the USA women’s team, Briana Scurry was its dominant goalkeeper between 1994 and 2009.
After making her World Cup debut in 1995, Scurry amassed 10 World Cup clean sheets, the most of any keeper.
During her time as the USA’s starting goalkeeper, Scurry earned a record 173 caps and had 71 clean sheets, helping the USWNT win the World Cup in 1999 and achieve a gold medal at the 2004 Summer Olympic Games in Athens.
Ever-present nations
There are just seven nations that have appeared in every Women’s World Cup since it was officially founded 28 years ago in 1991.
Brazil, Germany, Japan, Nigeria, Norway, Sweden and the USA are the omnipresent countries at the World Cup and will all make their eighth appearance at this year’s tournament in France.
Brazil, Sweden and Nigeria have yet to win the tournament, while Nigeria is the only one of this septet of nations to have never reached the semifinals.
Coaches
In the 2015 Women’s World Cup, eight of the 24 teams that competed were managed by female coaches.
Four years later and that number has risen to nine, with just three of them having had previous playing experience at Women’s World Cups.
Germany manager Martina Voss-Tecklenburg played 13 times (and scored one goal) in three tournaments and Japan’s Asako Takakura played in seven World Cup games.
Hosts France now have Corinne Diacre at the helm, who played in three games in 2003.
Stadiums
This year’s World Cup will be played in nine stadiums across France, with the opening fixture between France and South Korea having taken place in the Parc des Princes in Paris.
Alongside the Parc des Princes, two other stadiums were used in the men’s European Championships 2016 (Parc Olympique Lyonnais in Lyon and the Allianz Riviera in Nice).
The semifinals and final will be played at the Parc Olympique Lyonnais, which has a 58,000 capacity, the largest stadium at this year’s competition.<\/p>\n