From November 13 to December 1, the 6th edition of the FIFA U17 Women's World Cup will be held in Uruguay in three cities namely Montevideo, Maldonado and Colonia del Sacramento.

The U17 women's world cup which began in 2008 in New Zealand, is a biennial football competition and has North Korea as its defending champions.

Until 2012, Africa had only two representatives. But, for this year's finals, South Africa, Ghana and Cameroon will be  the continent's flag bearers in the competition.
                             
 (Bantwana line up against Morocco during the African qualifiers)

Bantwana of South Africa are making their second appearance at the world cup after 2010 in Trinitad and Tobago. This time, the girls of head coach Simphiwe Dludlu will try to avoid a disappointing outing they had eight years ago, where they suffered three defeats notably a 10-1 loss to Germany.     

South Africa will face very tough oppositions in the group stage against Brazil the current South American champions, Japan  winner of the FIFA U17 Women's World Cup in 2014 and two-time runners-up in 2012 and 2016 Mexico who were ranked second  at the 2018 CONCACAF U17 women's championship.

The very offensive football style displayed during the qualifiers where they scored 17 goals in four games and the quality of the teams faced in the build-up to the World Cup could be South Africa's weapons in the competition.

The Bantwana drew with Russia and Brazil but lost to China in the BRICS game and recently got beaten 3-0 by Uruguay in a friendly. They held their camp in Spain

(Black Maidens making their way onto the pitch for their semifinal clash against France in 2012.
                         
Having participated in all the previous edition of the U17 women's world cups, Ghana remains Africa's best performer with a third-place finish in Azerbaijan in 2012.

The Black Maidens as they are known as, also reached the quarter-finals on two occasions and even defeated heavyweights Germany.

The Ghanians have in their ranks Northern Ladies FC striker Mukarama Abdulai who was the top-scorer of the continental qualifiers to the World Cup with 12 goals.

Coach Evans Adotey's side were impressive in the qualifying campaign, scoring 26 times and conceding once in four matches leading to the World Cup.

They will be battling against hosts Uruguay whom they beat 5-0 in the group stage of the 2012 event, newcomers Finland and underdogs New Zealand.

(Cameroon players pose for a group photo before their qualifier against Nigeria)

The Cameroon's Baby Lioneses will be taking part in the competition for the second time in a row.

The team have seven players who were present in the last edition held in Jordan in 2016, where Cameroon finished bottom of their group with three defeats despite having interesting games.

This time the girls of the newly apointed coach Stephane Ndzana Ngono will lock horns with United States of America in their opening game before battling with Germany and the Democratic Republic of Korea.

The North Koreans have lifted the FIFA U17 Women's World Cup trophy twice in 2008 and 2016.

Captain Viviane Mefire and her teammates on road to Uruguay easily passed the Young Fennecs Ladies of Algeria 11-0 on Aggregate before creating the sensation of the qualifiers by eliminating the Flamingoes of Nigeria on away goals to secure their participation of the tournament.

Cameroon's goal poacher Kameni Djientieu  could be targetting to score more than the six goals netted by Nigerian forwards Loveth Ayila in 2010 in Trinidad and Tobago and Chinwendu Ihezuo in 2012 in Azerbaïjan.

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