China have already secured a spot in the Round of 16 at the 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup in France as No.3 of Group B. Though their opponents are not yet confirmed, it must be the No.1 team in Group C or Group D.

All Group C games were finished on Tuesday. Though Italy lost to Brazil 1-0, the Blues still broke out of the group as No.1 with six points. Australia and Brazil shared the same points but ranked No.2 and No.3 thanks to goal differences.

This is good news for China. On FIFA's world rankings list, Australia is No,6, Italy No.15 and China No.16. Meanwhile, Australia only missed the first Women's World Cup in 1991 before appearing at every of the following tournaments. By contrast, Italy only played three World Cups in 1991, 1999 and 2019, so Australia has much more experience at this stage in the competition. 

Australia holds the advantage in their past games against China in recent years. Moreover, the team participated in five AFC Women's Asian Cups since 2007, making the finals four times and winning one title. Their worst record was reaching the semifinals.

Australia's No.1 scorer Sam Kerr currently leads the World Cup's scoring list together with USA's Alex Morgan and both scored five goals. Kerr also has remarkable heading skills, which turns out be the weakness of China's defense. In every different light, avoiding Australia in the Round of 16 is good news for the Steel Roses.

It should be pointed out that China still needs to wait for all games of Group D (which will happen on Wednesday) to be over before they can find out who their opponent will be. In this group, the top two teams, England (six points) and Japan (four points) will play against each other at the Stade de Nice in Nice. Considering that the other two teams, Argentina and Scotland only have one and zero points respectively, Japan and England will for sure make the elimination round. The only question is, who will be the No.1 team?

England as world's No.3 apparently enjoy advantage over Japan (No.7). The last time the two teams played each other in a warm-up game, Japan lost 3-0. However, that does not mean Japan are aiming for a draw. If they cannot become No.1 of Group D, they will take on No.1 from Group E, which can be either the Netherlands or Canada. Compared with these two rivals, Japan may prefer to have an "Asian civil war" against China.