In four months, the U.S. Women’s National Team will join 11 other nations vying for gold as the 2024 Olympic Women’s Soccer Tournament kicks off in France. The Paris 2024 Final Draw, which will determine the groups and paths through the tournament for all participating teams, will be held just outside of Paris in Saint-Denis on Wednesday, March 20. The Draw will begin at 3 p.m. ET and will be livestreamed on FIFA+.
As the USWNT prepares to learn its path for Paris, get ready with Five Things to Know about the 2024 Olympic Draw.
OLYMPIC FORMAT
The 2024 Olympic Women’s Soccer Tournament will kick off on July 25 and will be contested over the course of two-and-a-half weeks across seven different cities in France. The tournament consists of 12 teams separated into three groups with four teams per group. All group stage matches will be played on July 25, July 28 and July 31, after which the group winners, runners-up and the two best third-place finishers will advance to the Knockout Stage.
The gold medal match will be played on August 10 at the iconic Parc des Princes in Paris while Stade de Lyon, which hosted the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup Final, will be the site of the bronze medal match. Along with Parc des Princes and Stade de Lyon, Stade Geoffroy-Guichard in Saint-Etienne, Stade de Marseille, Stade de Nice, Stade de Bordeaux and Stade de la Beaujoire in Nantes will also serve as host venues for the 2024 Summer Games.
TEN DOWN, TWO TO GO
Ten of the 12 teams that will compete in the Olympics this summer have already qualified for the tournament, with the just the two representatives from Africa still to be determined.
| Confederation | Berths | Qualifiers |
| Host | 1 | France |
| North America (Concacaf) | 2 | USA, Canada |
| South America (CONMEBOL) | 2 | Brazil, Colombia |
| Europe (UEFA) | 2 | Germany, Spain |
| Asia (AFC) | 2 | Australia, Japan |
| Oceania (OFC) | 1 | New Zealand |
| Africa (CAF) | 2 | TBD (South Africa or Nigeria; Morocco or Zambia) |
France qualified as hosts and is joined from Europe by 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup champions Spain, who won the 2024 UEFA Women’s Nations League, and Germany, who beat the Netherlands in the UEFA Women’s Nations League Third-Place Match.
The USA was the second team to qualify for the 2024 Olympics, booking its spot to Paris by winning the 2022 Concacaf W Championship, which also served as the region’s qualifying tournament for the 2023. FIFA Women’s World Cup and 2024 Concacaf W Gold Cup. Canada secured the second berth from Concacaf in September 2023, beating Jamaica in a two-legged playoff.
Brazil and Colombia qualified out of South America by finishing first and second, respectively, at the 2022 Copa America Femenina.
New Zealand qualified by virtue of winning the OFC Olympic Qualifying tournament last month while Australia and Japan also punched their tickets to the Olympics during the February international window, with Australia beating Uzbekistan in a two-leg playoff and Japan beating North Korea on aggregate over the two-game set.
The 2024 CAF Olympic Qualifying Tournament will conclude in early April to produce the final two qualifiers out of Africa, with the winners of the Nigeria-South Africa and Morocco-Zambia two-leg playoffs clinching the final berths for Paris.
POT ALLOCATION
The 12 qualified teams – with placeholders for the qualifiers from CAF – have been distributed into four pots of three teams each for the official draw based on the latest FIFA Women’s World Rankings.
| Pot | Team | FIFA Rank |
| 1 | France | 3 |
| 1 | Spain | 1 |
| 1 | USA | 4 |
| 2 | Germany | 5 |
| 2 | Japan | 7 |
| 2 | Canada | 9 |
| 3 | Brazil | 10 |
| 3 | Australia | 12 |
| 3 | Colombia | 23 |
| 4 | New Zealand | 28 |
| 4 | CAF 1 | N/A |
| 4 | CAF 2 | N/A |
Pot 1 consists of hosts France and the top-two ranked teams: Spain (#1) and the USA (#4) with Pot 2 comprised of Germany (#5), Japan (#7) and Canada (#9). Brazil (#10), Australia (#12) and Colombia (#23) comprise Pot 3 with Pot 4 consisting of New Zealand (#28) and the two yet-to-be-determined teams from Africa.
DRAW PROCEDURES
As host, France has been pre-assigned to position A1 and will play its first and third group stage matches at Stade de Lyon and will play its second group stage match in Saint-Etienne at Stade Geoffroy-Guichard on July 28. The remaining teams in Pot 1 – the USA and Spain – will be automatically drawn into position 1 of each remaining group, in order from Group B to C, meaning that the USA will be in either position B1 or C1.
If the USA is drawn into B1, it will play its first group stage game in Nice before playing its remaining two group stage games in Marseille. If drawn into C1, the USA will play its first two group stage games in Nantes at Stade de la Beaujoire before traveling to Bordeaux for the group stage finale.
Once all the teams have been drawn from Pot 1, the random draw will continue with Pot 2. For teams in Pot 2 and beyond, the group and the position in the group - 2,3 or 4 – will also be determined by random draw.
As a general principle, two teams from the same Confederation cannot be drawn into the same group. This means that the USA cannot be in a group with fellow Concacaf foe Canada (Pot 2). It also means that Germany (Pot 2) cannot be drawn into a group with either Spain or France from Pot 1, meaning it will be placed in the same group as the USA (B or C).
NEW FACES IN OLYMPIC FIELD
With only 12 teams qualifying for the Olympics, several teams are returning to the Olympics after watching from home last cycle.
Just six teams return from the 2021 Olympic Women’s Soccer Tournament in the USA, Brazil, Japan, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, with a possible seventh being Zambia if the Copper Queens qualify out of Africa.
All three European teams in this Olympic tournament – France, Spain and Germany – did not compete in the delayed 2021 Olympics in Japan.
Spain, the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup champions, will be participating in its first Olympic women’s soccer tournament and is the only team to qualify thus far which will be making its Olympic debut, but Morocco, which faces Zambia in a two-leg series in April for one of two Olympic berths from Africa, could be a second.