U20 Women's World Cup Dates / Venues / Format / Participants

DATES
The 2010 FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup will take place from July 13 through August 1 in four German cities.

VENUES
The venues are Bochum, Augsburg, Dresden and Bielefeld. Apart from Bielefeld, the three other stadiums will also host matches at the 2011 FIFA Women's World Cup next summer.

FORMAT
The 2010 FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup will consist of 16 nations placed into four groups of four teams. Each team will play three matches in the group in a round-robin format with the top two teams in each group advancing to the quarterfinals. The tournament then becomes a knockout competition.

All the group matches will be played as doubleheaders. All of the quarterfinals and semifinals are stand-alone matches while the third-place match and final will be played back-to-back on Aug. 1 in Bielefeld. The tournament consists of 32 total matches.

PARTICIPANTS
The 16 nations competing in the 2010 FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup are: host Germany; Japan, Korea Republic and Korea DPR from Asia; England, France, Sweden and Switzerland from Europe; the USA, Costa Rica and Mexico from North and Central America, Brazil and Colombia from South America, Nigeria and Ghana from Africa; and New Zealand from Oceania.

2010 FIFA World Cup Groups
A1: Germany B1: Brazil C1: England D1: USA
A2: Costa Rica B2: Korea DPR C2: Nigeria D2: Ghana
A3: Colombia B3: Sweden C3: Mexico D3: Switzerland
A4: France B4: New Zealand C4: Japan D4: Korea Republic

The opening match of the 2010 FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup features host Germany against Costa Rica in Bochum on July 13. The USA does not open its tournament until the second day of competition on July 14.

(Text Source: www.usssoccer.com)