Women's World Cup Schedule 2015: Live Stream and Times for Sunday Group Fixtures
Sunday will see the teams in Group B of the 2015 Women's World Cup kick off their campaigns, and Fox Sports and BBC will carry full live streams for both matches on the schedule.
Tournament favourites Germany will take on Ivory Coast at 4 p.m. ET, while Norway go up against Thailand at 1 p.m ET.
Both European powerhouses are favourites to qualify from Group B, but due to the format of this year's tournament, the four best third-placed teams from each group will also be given a spot in the knockout stages. Ivory Coast and Thailand will have their work cut out for them, and the match between the two could prove decisive.
Here's the schedule for Sunday's matches:
| Norway vs. Thailand | B | 1 p.m./6 p.m. | FOX, BBC Red Button | BBC iPlayer, FOX Soccer 2 Go, FOX SportsGO |
| Germany vs. Ivory Coast | B | 4 p.m./9 p.m. | FOX, BBC Three | BBC iPlayer, FOX Soccer 2 Go, FOX SportsGO |
To access Fox Soccer 2Go, click here. For the BBC iPlayer, click here.
Germany v Ivory Coast
There's a reason Bleacher Report's Michael Cummings put Germany at the top of his power rankings entering the tournament: They're just really good and shouldn't struggle too much against World Cup debutants Ivory Coast.
Nadine Kessler may not be appearing in this year's World Cup due to an injury, but the squad boasts incredible depth and is expected to comfortably survive even without the star midfielder.
Celia Sasic, who should provide the tournament favourites with plenty of goals, told BBC Global News' Caroline Rigby she and her team-mates are anxious to start, and they couldn't have asked for a better opponent in their first match:
Ivory Coast deserve a ton of respect for simply being here, but unfortunately, women's football is yet to truly gain popularity in Africa. The German team consists of top players plying their trade in the strongest leagues on the planet, and their opponents simply don't have the same kind of training staff or facilities at their disposal.
The team managed third place in the Africa Cup and currently sit in 67th place on the world rankings. Sports Illustrated's Grant Wahl took a good look at the matchup, and he expects a blowout:
It's hard to disagree with such a prediction. The Germans outscored their opponents 62 to four during their qualification campaign, and on paper, the teams they faced in the European zone were of a higher quality than Ivory Coast. Expect an easy win for the Germans.
Norway v Thailand
Norway were rocked by the news Caroline Graham Hansen, the team's top scorer during qualifiers, would miss the tournament due to an injury, but the 1995 champions will still like their chances of making it to the knockout stages:
The team shocked everyone by making it to the final of Euro 2013 and nearly beating the highly favoured Germans, and they'll be looking for a similarly impressive performance in Canada.
Without Graham Hansen providing the goals, the focus will switch to 19-year-old Ada Stolsmo Hegerberg, who scored five times during qualifiers and plays for Olympique Lyon.
Norway live up to their reputation by playing smart, sound football, but the new generation of emerging talent has the ability to decide matches with technique and skill. The loss of Graham Hansen stings, but expect the Norwegians to still finish second in Group B.
Kanjana Sung-Ngoen is the only Thailand player who made it into Andrew Gibney's Bleacher Report top 50 players in the tournament, and they're widely expected to be the weakest side in the tournament:
They finished fifth in the Asia Cup and conceded 11 goals against China and South Korea, showing their lack of experience on the international level. This is a very young side that should benefit tremendously from the experience of playing in a World Cup, but even a draw against the likes of Norway or Germany would be a miraculous result for Thailand.
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