At first sight this was a draw to have Sarina Wiegman and the Football Association beaming. A group featuring Norway, Austria and Northern Ireland, while not quite the one the England head coach might have hand-picked, was still as good as could be hoped.
But look more closely and a tricky quarter-final looms. The two teams that progress from Group A will meet the ones that come out of group B, which features eight-times winners Germany and the darkest of dark horses in Spain, if a team built around Europe’s best club side can be so called. Plus Denmark, runners-up four years ago.
Wiegman might, perhaps, cast her eyes enviously towards the Netherlands, the team she took to the title in 2017. Should they qualify from the slightly harder, but very negotiable group C, they will probably face France, Italy or Belgium, a challenge which appears more favourable, especially if France are avoided.
Tournaments, though, tend not to work out as seeded and the Lionesses will be focussing on getting out of their group first.
Austria and Northern Ireland will be familiar opponents as the three are in the same World Cup qualifying group. England beat Northern Ireland 4-0 at Wembley last weekend and will play Austria next month in Sunderland.
Irene Fuhrmann’s team have an excellent goalkeeper in Arsenal’s Manuela Zinsberger and one of the most dangerous strikers in Europe in Hoffenheim’s Nicole Billa, last season’s Bundesliga top-scorer. They also reached the semi-finals in 2017, albeit aided by a helpful draw and a quarter-final penalty shoot-out.
Nevertheless, they needed a last-gasp equaliser to draw with Northern Ireland in Belfast this week and were beaten 3-0 at home by England in 2018. Norway are also well-known to England, and represent a real threat to the Lionesses taking first place in the group.
England defeated them at both the 2015 and 2019 World Cups, but lost friendlies in 2017 and 2019 – their last meeting.
Euro 2022 draw – in full
Group A
- England
- Norway
- Austria
- Northern Ireland
Group B
- Germany
- Denmark
- Spain
- Finland
Group C
- Netherlands
- Sweden
- Russia
- Switzerland
Group D
- France
- Italy
- Belgium
- Iceland
In Barcelona’s Caroline Graham Hansen Norway have one of the world’s best attacking players, as the leading WSL teams have all discovered this year. They also have another Barcelona player in Ingrid Engen and a cluster of WSL regulars including Chelsea’s Guro Reiten and Arsenal’s Frida Maanum, who has settled quickly since joining this summer.
A player they do not have – at present – is Ada Hegerberg who remains estranged from the Norwegian FA, and thus their women’s team. The first winner of the female Ballon D’or is only just beginning her return from serious injury and likely to concentrate on her club football with Lyon, but were a rapprochement to occur Norway would be even stronger.
Northern Ireland were in Norway’s qualifying group, losing 6-0 home and away, but Kenny Shiels has since overseen considerable improvement, as shown by the draw with Austria. But realistically they are very much the group’s underdogs.
Outside of the England games the hottest group-match tickets are likely to be Germany v Spain at Brentford, which is scheduled when the group will still be in the balance and could be a thriller, and Netherlands v Sweden at Bramall Lane, which is likely to feature large travelling support for both teams.
But there are plenty of other good matches and it should be a vibrant tournament, one that provides the turbo-charge the sport craves.
from Football – inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/3GsxyjX
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