The USWNT will soon find out what it's path to defending it’s world title will look like. The 2019 Women's World Cup draw is nearly here. 

The Women's World Cup draw is the most important facet of a tournament that teams have no control over. Here’s a brief overview of when it takes place, how it works and what it all means.

While many soccer fans in Mexico will be paying attention to the Liga MX playoffs, which begin Wednesday night, or Tecatito becoming the first Mexican to score in three straight Champions League matches, the biggest news out of Mexican football this week comes not from Mexico or Europe but from Uruguay, where the U-17 Women's World Cup is reaching its climax.

Another day, another piece of evidence to file into the women’s soccer folder titled: “The World Is Catching Up With The USWNT.” 

The USWNT U-17 Women's World Cup campaign took a bad turn on Saturday. Featured on FS2 — one of the few soccer matches on TV in the U.S. on a day dominated by college football — the Americans were routed by North Korea 3-0 in their second Group C match in Uruguay. 

The U.S. opened the tournament with a 3-0 win while North Korea lost 4-1. Perhaps the Americans assumed they’d have an easy win based on those scores, but that was anything but the case. 

Just like Switzerland many time zones away, Panama had a steep hill to climb going into its game against Argentina at home on Tuesday night. Panama dropped a 4-0 decision to Argentina in the first game of the two-legged playoff. Much of the drama in that fixture took place in stoppage time as Argentina scored two goals and Panama saw two players sent off.

It was always going to be an uphill battle for the Swiss heading into Tuesday's second game of the two-leg playoff to decide which UEFA team would lock up the region’s last spot in the 2019 Women’s World Cup. Switzerland found itself in quite a significant hole after a 3-0 away loss on Thursday and needed to be firing on all cylinders (an off day from its opponent wouldn’t hurt either) to keep its hopes alive. 

The Scotland women’s national team gave the U.S. all it could handle on Tuesday at St Mirren Park, and although there was warm applause for Alex Morgan and an audible intake of breath amongst the 3,790 in attendance during the USWNT’s best passages of play, the Scots will have left their home supporters looking forward to next summer’s World Cup with keen anticipation. 

The U-17 Women's World Cup kicked off on Tuesday in Uruguay, featuring 16 of the best youth national teams in the world. 

It didn’t take long for the tournament to show just how good these young women are.

While the opening match of the tournament finished 0-0 between Brazil and Japan, the second — between New Zealand and Finland — provided an incredible first goal of the tournament.