Host country Portugal Dates 9–15 March | City Algarve Runners-up Germany | |
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Teams 12 (from 3 confederations) Champions United States (4th title) | ||
The 2005 Algarve Cup is the 12th edition of the Algarve Cup, an invitational women's football tournament held annually in Portugal. It took place 9-15 March 2005. The USA won the tournament defeating Grmany, 1-0, in the final-game. The tournament victory was the second for the USA, and their third in a row.
Format
The twelve invited teams are split into three groups that played a round-robin tournament.
Since the expansion to 12 teams in 2002, the Algarve Cup format has been as follows: Groups A and B, containing the strongest ranked teams, are the only ones in contention to win the title. The group A and B winners contest the final - to win the Algarve Cup. The runners-up play for third place, and those that finish third in the groups play for fifth place. The teams in Group C played for places 7–12. The winner of Group C played the team that finished fourth in Group A or B (whichever has the better record) for seventh place. The Group C runner-up played the team who finishes last in Group A or B (with the worse record) for ninth place. The third and fourth-placed teams in Group C played for the eleventh place.
Points awarded in the group stage followed the standard formula of three points for a win, one point for a draw and zero points for a loss. In the case of two teams being tied on the same amount of points in a group, their head-to-head result determined the higher place.