Euro 25 - TF Preview
It's not the Club World Cup, features England vs Wales, and Toon representation (no, not Ella). Mark's here to preview the best football you'll find between now and Celtic.
This year, 2025, the UEFA Women’s Euros competition returns and is being hosted by Switzerland. England’s Lionesses aim to retain the trophy they won in 2022, an event that is acknowledged as having transformed the interest and participation in women’s football across the UK.
NUWFC’s own transformation dates from a similar time, with the Saudi PIF takeover of the club in late 2021. This led to the Lasses officially becoming part of NUFC, their professionalisation when in Tier 3 of the women’s league, and back-to-back promotions to the now renamed WSL2 (or Championship in old money).
NUWFC’s sole representative (currently) of the 16 teams featured is Lois Joel with the Wales team, as they qualified for their first major international tournament. As mentioned in my previous Lasses post, 12 players left NUWFC and the expectation amongst fans is that the European market will be tapped and players from those 16 nations may well be turning up at Kingston and St James’ Parks once the tournament is concluded.
I’m certainly not an ITK social media influencer so I’m not going to say that Player X or Y or even Z playing in the Euros will be wearing B&W next season, so watch this space and as players arrive, I’ll update you all.
Back to the Euros and the format of this year’s competition is four groups of four teams, the top two teams from each group progressing to the quarter-finals.
Group A features hosts Switzerland, Norway, Finland and Iceland
Group B features Spain, Portugal, Belgium and Italy
Group C features Germany, Poland, Denmark and Sweden
Group D features France, England, Wales and Netherlands
The matches will be played in eight host cities – Geneva, Sion, Thun, Bern, Basel, Zurich, Lucerne and St Gallen. The final on 27 July will be held at St Jakob Park, Basel (home of FC Basel who NUFC played in the 2003/04 UEFA Cup competition, the Lads winning home and away) with a capacity of under 36,000. The last Euros final was at a sold-out Wembley, with over 87,000 in attendance, so to host it at a stadium with less than half that capacity is strange; however, there are no other larger stadiums in the country!
Wales and England both start the tournament on 5 July, playing Netherlands and France respectively. You’d expect France and England to get out of the group. The last time France and England faced each other was home and away in the qualifying stages for this tournament. The home game was held at St James’ where England lost 1-2 (typically this was my first time watching the Lionesses live…) with keeper Mary Earps getting injured in the opening minutes of the game (I’m not a jinx honest). In the return leg England won 1-2.
England suffered some uncertainty before the tournament with Millie Bright, Fran Kirby, and Mary Earps all announcing their international retirement. France suffered similar upset but with captain Wendi Renard, vice-captain Eugénie Le Sommer and experienced midfielder Kenza Dali all being dropped from the Euros squad.
Wales, as mentioned above, qualified for their first major women’s tournament by beating the Republic of Ireland in the final qualifying match. Their squad announcement (containing Wor Joel) was held at the summit of Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon) as throughout their qualifiers they used scaling a mountain as a metaphor for their task. The match that will be the one of most interest to home nation fans is England v Wales in St Gallen on Sunday 13 July. Will Lois get a place in the starting 11? We’ll have to wait and see.
Opta ranks Spain, current World Champions (they beat England 1-0 in the final) as the favourites to win, with England second favourites and unfortunately Wales reckoned to have 0% chance of winning it. That’s despite the inclusion of Chelsea’s Sophie Ingle – who’s recovered from an ACL and record cap-holder and goal scorer Jess Fishlock. England have included Lauren James (whose brother was sent off against NUFC and was serenaded by the SJP crowd pointing out that ‘your sister’s better than you’) and exciting youngster Michelle Agyemang.
The winners of Group D will play the runners-up of Group C and runners-up of Group D will play winners of Group C, therefore England could be repeating the 2022 final by playing Germany, this time in the QFs.
Who will progress from the group stages? Group A – despite Switzerland being hosts I think it’ll be Norway winning with Iceland surprising runners-up. Group B – Spain winners, Belgium runners-up. Group C – Germany winners, Sweden runners-up. Group D – France winners, England runners-up, sorry Wales!
So, who do I think will win it? It’s going to be hard to overlook Spain. They are current World Champions, England will do well to get to the SFs, their preparations were upset by the big name withdrawals and results have been mixed of late. Germany are six times winners of this tournament and will want to make up for losing the 2022 final. I think it will be a Spain v Germany final with ‘La Roja’ adding another patch to the World Cup winners’ one on their shirt, sorry Lionesses.
There will be lots of coverage on BBC and ITV, on-line and radio. Every game will be shown on the two main TV channels (although some might be on iPlayer/ITVX). There will be plenty of highlights shown on-line.
If you missed the hype of the Euros 2022 then I recommend taking in some of the games of this tournament. If it’s the first women’s match(es) you’ve watched, then welcome to the fastest growing sport in the world. Once it’s over, get yourself along to watch Wor Lasses aiming for promotion to WSL1.
As ever, Howay the Lasses and in this case the Lionesses, enjoy the match!
Mark Stutt
Image: St Jakob Park, Basel (Luka-bs, CC BY-SA 3.0)