The FPI overview of the FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup 2025™

The novel format, which saw the majority of games played at Rabat’s Football Academy Mohammed VI, produced a festival of football that placed player and team development at its core. In what follows, FIFA’s Football Performance Insights Team (FPI) and Technical Study Group (TSG) reveal key technical, tactical and physical learnings from the competition to capture the current state of the U-17 women’s game. The FPI and TSG’s analysis is broken down into the following key areas:

Part 1. The FPI overview – the first part of the analysis provides a summary covering big-picture metrics, such as goals scored, ball-in-play time and playing styles.

Part 2. High pressing short goal kicks – part two explores the increasingly aggressive solutions teams are adopting to counter short goal kicks.

Part 3. Direct play from regains – in the third piece, the way teams behaved during attacking transitions is put under the microscope.

Part 4. Centre-forward significance – the final piece assesses the ways centre-forwards proved their increased importance at the tournament.

• 0 – The number of goals scored from direct free kicks in FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup 2024™. Teams at the 2025 tournament managed 10.

• 6.2 – The average number of seconds per possession sequence at FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup 2025. This decreased by almost a second from 2024, suggesting more direct and combative passages of play.

• 15 – The first 15 minutes produced more goals than any other 15-minute period in the 2025 tournament. The rate of goals scored here increased when compared to the previous two iterations.

• 43 – The number of goals scored outside the penalty area. Long-range efforts accounted for a larger share of total goals compared to 2024.

The FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup 2025 produced 175 goals and 1,469 attempts. Both outputs are new records for the competition, which is no surprise considering the increased number of teams and matches provided by the new format.

However, comparing goals scored to previous U-17 Women’s World Cups by goals per game reveals an increase from 2.8 in FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup 2024 to 3.4 in 2025. Attempts also increased by 2.9 per game when compared to 2024. The winning margins within games widened from a 2.41 deficit in 2024 to 2.86 in 2025.

Of the 175 goals scored in Morocco, 59 were scored from dead-ball situations – a share of 34%. This portion of set-play goals increased by 6% from 2024, supporting a wider trend of set plays becoming increasingly influential in the modern game. Corner kicks accounted for 26 set-play goals, more than any other type. One of the most striking statistics from 2025 can be found in direct free kicks. A total of 10 were scored in 2025, whereas in 2024, participants managed none.

Most teams were able to harness set plays to score goals, with 19 of 24 participants scoring at least once from a dead ball. Over half of the teams (14) managed two or more. Several tournament participants achieved monumental returns from set plays, such as Canada and tournament winners Korea DPR, who each scored from seven and conceded only one.

When defending corners, hybrid marking was the most popular system, used in 42.5% of corners. This marks a notable change from the 2024 competition, where player marking was most common, used 40.5% of the time. This method reduced to 29.4% in 2025.

When during games were goals scored? Looking at Figure 4, the opening 15 minutes produced the highest number of goals out of any period. This has been increasing incrementally over the last three U-17 Women’s World Cups. The 75-to-90-minute period produced the second-highest number of goals, meaning the latter stages of matches in Morocco did not disappoint the neutral either.

Additional time during the first half featured the fewest goals in 2025, just as it did in 2024 and 2022. However, a significant difference in 2025 was the number of goals scored before the half-time whistle – seven. None were scored during this period in 2022, and only two were scored in 2024.

The tournament in Morocco featured players unafraid to take long-range shots on goal. The share of shots converted from outside the penalty area in 2025 more than doubled compared to the 2024 tournament. This portion, 26%, also eclipses that of the 2022 competition. Memorable long-range efforts include Mexico’s Citlalli Reyes’s stunning 32-metre strike against the Netherlands during the group stage.

As mentioned earlier, the average possession sequence length decreased by almost a second compared to 2024, moving in the direction of the 2022 tournament. In a similar fashion, Figure 6 shows that ball-in-play time at the 2025 tournament reduced by 02:13 per match compared to 2024, and the time the ball was in a contested state increased by 54 seconds per match. These two changes suggest that games in 2025 involved less control and more time spent in combative situations than in 2024, a profile that aligns more closely to FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup 2022™.

Measuring the duration of possession sequences also points to more abrupt passages of play in the 2025 tournament than in 2024. The average duration of a possession sequence in 2025 decreased from 2024 by almost a second (from 7.1 seconds down to 6.2). How quickly these possession sequences progressed the ball forward also reveals more combative games. Half of the teams’ time in possession registered as “fast and direct”, with the average progression speed across all teams at 3.1 metres per second. Two teams bucked the trend, Spain and the USA, who pursued a more patient approach. When on the ball, these teams favoured more controlled, methodical build-up play rather than direct attacks.