FIFA Women's World Rankings
Also, no two teams from the same confederation could draw each other, except for those from UEFA, where a maximum of two teams from UEFA could be drawn into the same group. Group B quickly became dubbed the group of death since three of the top five teams in the world were drawn in this group – the USA (1st), Sweden (3rd) and North Korea (5th), according to the June 2007 FIFA Women's World Rankings, the last to be released before the tournament. The same four teams were drawn together in Group A in the 2003 FIFA Women's World Cup, on that occasion the US and Sweden progressed to the knockout stages.