The 2002 Algarve Cup was the ninth edition of the Algarve Cup, an invitational women's football tournament hosted annually by Portugal. It was held from first to seventh of March 2002. This was the first edition where the tournament was expanded to twelve teams; all prior editions had eight teams participation. The tournament was won by China, defeating Norway 2-0 in the final-game. Sweden ended up third defeating Germany, 2-1, in the third prize game.^[1]

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2002 Algarve Cup

Tournament details
Host country	Portugal
City	various cities in Algarve
Dates	1–7 March 2002
Teams	12 (from 3 confederations)
Final positions
Champions	China (2nd title)
Runners-up	Norway
Third place	Sweden
Fourth place	Germany
Tournament statistics
Matches played	24
Goals scored	88 (3.67 per match)
Top scorer(s)	Shannon MacMillan (seven goals)
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The twelve invited teams are split into three groups that played a round-robin tournament.

With 12 teams participating, 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 number of points in a group, their head-to-head result determined the higher place.