Players You Should Know No woman has scored more World Cup goals than Marta’s 15, but in her fifth — and possibly final — World Cup, she is still chasing her first major trophy with Brazil. So is Formiga, who is playing in her seventh World Cup at 41.

What to Expect Brazil, a participant in every World Cup and a finalist in 2007, nonetheless has been a perpetual underachiever on the game’s biggest stage. For two decades, its whole has somehow managed to be less than the sum of its considerable parts. Now, with a veteran team taking one last shot and expectations lowered amid the rise of other powers, could this finally be the year Brazil goes all the way?

Jamaica

Best World Cup Finish This is Jamaica’s first World Cup.

The Run-Up The Reggae Girlz are the first Caribbean team to book a ticket to the Women’s World Cup, an achievement that came five years after they rose from the ashes of a cut in funding. The turnaround was financed in part by the financial and emotional support of benefactors like Cedella Marley, Bob Marley’s daughter. And the team is built on young players and daughters of the Jamaican diaspora, like the Jamaican-American Jody Brown, a Florida high school star who just turned 17.