The 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup kicks off today in Paris. Twenty-four teams will vie for their chance at glory.

Here’s what you need to know to follow all the action.

When does the Women’s World Cup start?

The tournament begins at the Parc des Princes in Paris, where a strong team from host nation France takes on South Korea in the opening match. The schedule ramps up Saturday with three games: Germany vs. China, Spain vs. South Africa and Norway vs. Nigeria.

The U.S. plays its first match on Tuesday against Thailand, then plays Chile on June 16 and Sweden on June 20.

The whole schedule is here. The final is July 7.

Where is it?

The games will crisscross between nine French cities: Paris, Grenoble, Le Havre, Lyon, Montpellier, Nice, Reims, Rennes and Valenciennes. The semifinals and final will be in Lyon.

How can I watch it?

In the U.S., all the games will be broadcast on either Fox or Fox Sports, and streamed on the Fox Sports app. Video of each goal will be tweeted by the Fox Sports Twitter account.

Remind me what happened last time?

How could you forget? It was a rematch of the 2011 Women’s World Cup, when the U.S. lost in heartbreaking fashion to Japan.

In 2015, the U.S. trounced Japan 5-2, including a hat trick by Carli Lloyd. Her third goal was an insane shot from the halfway line that sailed over the Japanese keeper and bounced into the net. The U.S. never looked back.

You should probably rewatch the game highlights right now.

Who’s going to win this thing?

No one knows. Many predict this will be the most competitive Women’s World Cup ever.

The U.S. is ranked No. 1 in the world and has a formidable array of attackers who should have no trouble scoring: Alex Morgan, Megan Rapinoe, Tobin Heath and Lloyd, among others. But defense could be a weakness, and the U.S. has sometimes struggled in the past against teams that bunker down and don’t allow the U.S. to work its offensive magic.

Germany looks poised to make a deep run in the tournament, led by midfielder Dzsenifer Marozsán and forward Alexandra Popp. But coach Martina Voss-Tecklenburg was put in charge only late last year, and the team’s prospects are still coming into focus.

England has a number of strong players, including attacker Fran Kirby and defensive star Lucy Bronze. Coached by former England player Phil Neville, England is a good bet to be among the last four teams standing.

Expectations for France are high, as the host country and after its men’s team won last summer’s World Cup. Watch for big moves by midfielder Amandine Henry and forwards Eugénie Le Sommer and Delphine Cascarino.

As for Brazil, superstar Marta suffered a thigh injury two weeks ago that might hamper the team’s fortunes.

Any controversies to be aware of?

The big issue this year is pay inequity between the women’s players and the men’s.

Twenty-eight members of the U.S. team are suing U.S. Soccer for gender discrimination, arguing that they are paid less than members of the men’s team though they perform substantially equal work.

While the U.S. women have been credited with leading a push for change, they’re not the only ones voicing frustration and asking for parity.

This week, the union representing the Australian women’s and men’s players sent a letter to FIFA, alleging “discriminatory conduct” by the international governing body in awarding teams at the Women’s World Cup just a fraction of prize money that the men’s teams are given.

The best player in the world, Norwegian striker Ada Hegerberg, won’t be playing for her home country. She says the Norwegian soccer federation hasn’t done enough to support the women’s game, and she now refuses to play for the national team. Norway instituted equal pay for its men’s and women’s teams in 2017, but Hegerberg says it’s not just about equal pay, it’s about respect — and so she won’t be in the tournament.

Any great team nicknames I should know?

Many of the nicknames are variations on the men’s teams: France is Les Bleues, Jamaica has the Reggae Girlz and England are the Three Lionesses.

The best nickname belongs to Australia: The Matildas. The Aussies took on the moniker in the 1990s, after the classic Australian bush ballad “Waltzing Matilda.”

Speaking of Australia, keep an eye on star striker Sam Kerr. She’s the all-time leading goalscorer in the U.S.-based National Women’s Soccer League — and she does a backflip when she scores, which is often.

Who has the best uniforms?

France’s two kits are both très chic: The home jersey is the classic blue with a golden crest. The away is white with blue dots, and socks in the same pattern. Vive les dots!

The U.S. kits, in crisp white and bold red, are meant to evoke the uniforms of the famous 1999 team that bested China in spectacular fashion. And the U.S. jerseys also have the finest detail of all: three stars above the crest, representing the three World Cups the Yanks have brought home.

Jamaica also has great kits, sporting old-school Umbro style.

Nigeria caused a stir with its lime-green zigzags at last summer’s men’s World Cup. This year, the women will also rock the zags, and they look at least as cool.

Are there any inspirational ads I should watch to get me hyped before the first whistle?

The best video comes from the German national team. It gets bonus points for being about powerful, opinionated women and not only about inspiring girls. (Most of the ads are about inspiring girls.)

Second prize goes to Nike’s 3-minute, globe-trotting ad that is about inspiring girls.

See you on the pitch.

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Every now and then, boxing fights its way back into the crowded sports headlines and Saturday was one of those moments.

Little-known Andy Ruiz Jr. gave sports fans a new Rocky moment. The 29-year-old fighter beat the favored and previously undefeated Anthony Joshua at Madison Square Garden in New York, and became the heavyweight champion of the world.

Or, to be specific, Ruiz became the champion of the confusing, alphabet soup world of boxing – he’s now the top heavyweight in the WBA, IBF, WBO and IBO fight-sanctioning bodies.

Ruiz also is the first heavyweight champion of Mexican descent.

And when we say heavyweight – we mean it.

Ruiz stands 6 feet, 2 inches tall and weighs a shade under 270 pounds. His flab is evident – he can’t hide the fact, wearing boxing trunks, nor does he try. Pre-fight, he had a warning for Joshua – “don’t underestimate this little fat boy.”

Whether or not Joshua did, it became evident in the fight’s third round that he indeed had a fight on his hands. He knocked down Ruiz, and looked well on his way to another win. But stunningly, Ruiz came back in that same round and knocked down Joshua. Not once but twice. As Joshua got up after the second knockdown, the bell rang. Many believe that saved Joshua from an earlier defeat.

As it was, Ruiz scored two more knockdowns in the seventh, and the referee called the fight. Ruiz was the champion by technical knockout.

“It doesn’t matter what you look like or what kind of physique you have,” veteran boxing writer Nigel Collins told NPR. “The most important thing is knowing how to fight.”

Collins, a staff writer for ESPN, said Ruiz cut off the ring perfectly against Joshua — meaning Ruiz didn’t chase after Joshua, but instead moved to where Joshua wanted to go.

“That’s a skill,” Collins said, “that involves a lot of lateral movement. You don’t want to follow the guy because he’ll always be one step ahead of you. You move laterally so you’re still right in front of him without following him.

“Some fighters do a lot of stuff that uses up energy that’s not really accomplishing anything. [Ruiz], no. Every move he made, he knew what he was doing.”

Regarding Ruiz’s sizeable girth, Collins said he saw a video of Ruiz doing agility drills.

“And he was doing it great, like a ballet dancer,” Collins said.

A 2015 inductee into the International Boxing Hall of Fame, Collins has witnessed other boxers who, shall we say, were less than sculpted.

“We want to talk about fat fighters,” Collins said, “how about George Foreman when he came back? You know, he was making cheeseburger jokes at press conferences and he had this big gut on him and he ended up winning the heavyweight championship 10 years after he retired.”

Foreman had cheeseburgers; Ruiz has Snickers bars. They have been his candy of choice since he was a kid. His dad, who introduced him to boxing, also introduced him to Snickers.

“My dad would always give me a Snickers before a fight,” Ruiz said. “It gives me energy. It give me everything I need to get the win.”

With Saturday’s win, Ruiz turned the boxing world upside down. Reactions on Twitter included disparaging words for Joshua, a champion from England. He’s been criticized for not fighting other top heavyweights, such as Deontay Wilder.

Wilder tweeted: “He wasn’t a true champion.”

And this from Shannon Sharpe, former NFL star turned co-host of Fox’s sports talk show Skip and Shannon: Undisputed: “Joshua got knocked out by a dude shaped like Butterbean.”

But mostly there was praise for Ruiz, who only qualified for the fight after Joshua’s original opponent failed several drug tests.

Boxing is incredibly popular in Hispanic culture. Boxing experts say the growth of that demographic in the United States has saved the sport here. And Ruiz’s triumph only adds to that.

“There are a lot of good Mexican boxers,” said 15-year-old Mexican-American Trinidad Vargas. “I’m proud of that, to be able to relate to them. [Ruiz] is pretty inspiring.”

Vargas was speaking to NPR from the U.S. Olympic training center in Colorado Springs, where he’s taking part in a boxing training camp. He’s one of this country’s up-and-coming fighters. He watched Ruiz win on Saturday and says beyond their similar heritage, they have similarities in size. Not weight, certainly. Vargas weighs only about 110 pounds. But at 5 feet, 5 inches, he’s small, just as Ruiz is relatively short for the heavyweight division. Vargas said he appreciates how Ruiz worked against the taller Joshua, and actually mimicked the tactics in his own fighting.

“I kind of did that today,” Vargas said, “because I had to spar a tall fighter and it worked pretty well with the double jabs, coming in [with] over the top [punches].”

Vargas said one of his best skills is copying styles of great fighters like Floyd Mayweather Jr., Canelo Alvarez and Gervonta Davis.

He said he’ll keep copying Andy Ruiz, although only with boxing technique.

“I plan to stay light and cut,” Vargas laughed.

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Updated at 2:30 p.m. ET

Switzerland’s Federal Supreme Court has temporarily blocked a rule that kept track star Caster Semenya from competing, saying she should be allowed to race while her appeal proceeds. Track and field’s international governing body has said Semenya can’t compete in her signature event unless she lowers her testosterone level.

The Swiss court ruled Monday that Semenya, an Olympic and world champion in the 800 meters, should be allowed to “compete without restriction in the female category” during her appeal.

The International Association of Athletics Federations recently changed its rules, with the result requiring that Semenya, 28, lower her testosterone level artificially before she can compete against other women in the 800 meters and other track events.

“I am thankful to the Swiss judges for this decision,” South Africa’s Semenya said in a statement about the ruling. “I hope that following my appeal I will once again be able to run free.”

Semenya’s attorney in the Swiss case, Dorothee Schramm of the Sidley Austin law firm, said the court had given Semenya “temporary protection.”

“This is an important case that will have fundamental implications for the human rights of female athletes,” Schramm said.

In the next step in the legal dispute, the Swiss Federal Supreme Court will give the IAAF a chance to submit its arguments for maintaining its regulation that effectively bans Semenya — who has refused to manipulate her testosterone level. The court will then issue what could be its final ruling on the IAAF’s prohibition that blocks female athletes with high testosterone levels, even in cases where those elevations occur naturally. The IAAF has warned those female athletes that they need to drop their testosterone levels to be eligible to compete.

“The IAAF suggests this reduction be done by taking hormonal contraceptives, and it emphasizes that surgical changes are not required,” as NPR’s Laurel Wamsley has reported.

Semenya’s case has raised complicated questions, including the nature of holding separate competitions for men and women, how much of athletes’ abilities might be due to hormones and how to reconcile a blanket fairness policy with athletes who have what are called differences of sex development, or DSDs — a term that also applies to people who are known as intersex.

As NPR’s Melissa Block has reported:

“Caster Semenya was raised as a female and is legally female. She’s fighting rules that affect DSD athletes who have what are typically male XY chromosomes, who were born with internal testes and who have testosterone levels higher than the typical female range.”

Last month, Semenya lost a separate case before the Court of Arbitration for Sport, which ruled that while the regulations regarding DSD athletes are discriminatory, they’re also “necessary, reasonable and proportionate” as a way to ensure fair competition through regulating hormone levels.

Semenya contends that the IAAF’s regulations unfairly discriminate against athletes on the basis of sex or gender, because they apply only to female athletes — and only to a subset of female athletes who have certain traits.

The IAAF’s regulations require female athletes in restricted events — from the 400 meters to the mile — to keep their testosterone below a certain level for at least six months before a competition and to maintain it below that threshold as long as they want to be eligible to race.

The testosterone limit kicks in at 5 nmol/L (nanomoles per liter).

“Most females (including elite female athletes) have low levels of testosterone circulating naturally in their bodies (0.12 to 1.79 nmol/L in blood),” the IAAF said when it announced the new rule, “while after puberty the normal male range is much higher (7.7 – 29.4 nmol/L).”

When Semenya lost her appeal last month, the IAAF said she and other female athletes who have testosterone levels above 5 nmol/L had one week to bring them down, urging the women to begin their “suppressive treatment as soon as possible.”

But instead of starting that treatment to preserve her eligibility, Semenya took her fight to another court.

“I am a woman and I am a world-class athlete,” she said last week. “The IAAF will not drug me or stop me from being who I am.”

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