“I don’t feel any pressure about this draw,” says Jill Scott, Euro 2022 winner and Overlapper. Lot of confidence among the English. We never change.
Women’s Euro 2025 draw – live
The geeky stat that I’m rather proud of is that no team has ever won the Women’s Euros after being drawn outside of Group A or Group B, and 2009 (England) was the only time that any team from Group C or D has reached the final.
There are some caveats to that, not least that this competition didn’t have more than eight teams until 2009 and only expanded to 16 teams as recently 2017. However, there is a science behind it too. Being in groups A or B means you have more rest in between matches and more time to recover for the knockout fixtures. Group A’s winners generally tend to have the kindest knockout pathway too. If you want the best route to Basel, you want to be in Groups A or B.
Wales will be in the bottom pot, as they get ready for their first ever finals.
Chatting to media colleagues from other countries around Europe here at the SwissTech Convention Centre in Lausanne, there is one team they are all hoping to avoid: England. And it’s not hard to understand why they’d be keen to steer clear of the holders, when teams are picked from Pot 2. Uefa’s decision to seed the draw pots based on performances in the Nations League, rather than by world rankings, has made Pot 3 arguably a lot stronger than Pot 2, where England - ranked fourth in the world - are joined by the teams ranked 12th, 13th and 14th in the world in Denmark, Italy and Iceland respectively. The Lionesses were comfortable 5-1 winners over the Italians in February, to illustrate the variation in strength in that Pot. The odds are, whichever group England are in will probably be the ‘group of death’.
Group stage matchday one: 2-5 July
Group stage matchday two: 6-9 July
Group stage matchday three: 10-13 July
Quarter-finals: 16-19 July
Semi-finals: 22-23 July
Final: 27 July
The defending champions will look very different from being winning hosts in 2022.
A reminder of how the play-offs were won.
The venues, with the final, on 27 July being played in Basel.
St Jakob-Park, Basel
Stadion Wankdorf, Bern
Stade de Geneve, Geneva
Stadion Letzigrund, Zurich
Arena St Gallen, St Gallen
Allmend Stadion Luzern, Lucerne
Arena Thun, Thun
Stade de Tourbillon, Sion
England will be there to defend their crown but Spain, the world champions, will lead the challengers. Wales will be there, too. Here’s those all-important pots. It suggests the English could get a tough draw. It all kicks off on 2 July 2025.
Pot 1: Spain, Germany, France, Switzerland (hosts go into Group A)
Pot 2: Italy, Iceland, Denmark, England
Pot 3: Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Belgium
Pot 4: Finland, Poland, Portugal, Wales
The draw takes place at 5pm UK time, join me.