| |
It’s that time again, the Women’s European Championships are just around the corner and in typical fashion, most of the attention is falling on the current holders.
Three years ago it was the Netherlands (who fell at the quarter-finals), seven years ago it was Germany (who fell at the quarter-finals) and now it’s England (who may or may not fall at the quarter-finals).
England are one of the big two expected to produce this summer along with current world champions, Spain, but is it safe to expect a repeat of the 2023 World Cup final?
Well...
The German team is entirely top-heavy and ten of the 12 midfielders/attackers called up have all scored for them this calendar year alone and, like with Spain, it’s easy enough to expect them to gallop through the group stage, scoring for fun.
Jose Mourinho once called Arsene Wenger “a specialist in failure” but he might well have been talking about the French women’s national team: a team usually expected to do well but that so rarely does.
We’ve seen France’s golden generation bloom and retire and the best Les Bleues have ever done is a semi-final loss at the last Euros (or a fourth place finish at the 2011 World Cup).
Trying to leave the failures of the past behind, coach Laurent Bonadei opted to leave some of his best players behind for this tournament, favouring youth (and less tournament misery) but still, there is as ever, some incredible talent in the squad but as well we know, you simply can’t trust France.
Chelsea’s Sandy Baltimore is coming into this one in red hot form for her country though, so, maybe this is the year?
The last of the home nations to qualify for the Euros, the Welsh would have not enjoyed watching the draw and seeing the Dragons given a similar test to Poland in their first appearance.
Here for a good time, not necessarily a long time, it’s going to be tough for Wales but, again, like Poland, we did see some intelligent and resilient football during the play-offs.
Finally (and really finally as I’ve waffled for so long), we have the winners from 2017 who have been struggling to put their best foot forward since the 2019 World Cup.
An absolute pain to predict how they’re going to go from one game to the next, bouncing from good wins to bad performances, the Dutch might just be able to pick up some momentum facing Wales first and finishing with France, but don’t be surprised if they manage to snooker themselves along the way.
A group of question marks more than death, or answers, but a predicted finishing order of England, France (maybe), Netherlands and Wales.
Your best outright shots are Spain, England and Germany and the three most likely respective top goalscorers are Esther González, Alessia Russo and Lea Schüller.
And remember, if you’re expecting both Spain and England to win their respective groups, they will meet in the semi-final in Zurich and avoid the winner of Group C who will be on the other side of the bracket.
Odds correct at 1145 BST (26/06/25)
Top goalscorer odds correct at 0920 BST (01/07/25)
We are committed in our support of safer gambling. Recommended bets are advised to over-18s and we strongly encourage readers to wager only what they can afford to lose.
If you are concerned about your gambling, please call the National Gambling Helpline / on 0808 8020 133.
Further support and information can be found at and .