Belgium’s manager has said it is “a pity” that his side will be playing at Manchester City’s Academy Stadium during next month’s European Championship.
Speaking after Thursday night’s 3-0 defeat to England at Molineux, Ives Serneels admitted he understood why others have raised concerns about the venues being used at the tournament.
“I can understand that [not being happy],” he said. “When you want to organise a big tournament like here in England, I have also some questions.
“[The Academy Stadium] is a nice field, that’s for me the most important thing, but I think when you could have sold 10-12 thousand tickets maybe, it’s a pity we have to play in a stadium of four, five, six thousand.”
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Belgium, who are in a group with Italy, Iceland and France, will play two games at the Academy Stadium and one at Rotherham United’s New York Stadium.
Due to Uefa rules which do not permit fans to stand in their competitions, the Academy Stadium – which is normally split into 5,000 seats and 2,000 standing capacity – will be restricted to just 4,000.
In April, Iceland captain Sara Björk Gunnarsdottir criticised staging fixtures at the ground which is home to Man City’s women’s and youth teams.
“It is shocking – we play a tournament in England with several large arenas, and we get to play at a training facility that takes around 5,000 spectators,” she told women’s football podcast Their Pitch.
“It is just embarrassing and it is not the respect we deserve. They haven’t prepared for the fact that we can sell more than 4,000, it is disrespectful to women’s football.”
Stadium capacities for Euro 2022
- The Amex (Brighton & Hove Albion) – 31,800
- Brentford Community Stadium (Brentford) – 17,250
- Bramall Lane (Sheffield United) – 32,050
- St Mary’s (Southampton) – 32,384
- Old Trafford (Manchester United) – 74,140
- Manchester City Academy Stadium (Manchester City Women) – 7,000
- stadium:mk (MK Dons) – 30,500
- New York Stadium (Rotherham United) – 12,021
- Leigh Sports Village (Manchester United Women) – 12,000
What we learned from England 3-0 Belgium
With a home Euros now fewer than three weeks away, the Lionesses were able to get the better of Belgium in the first of three warm-up matches. Here’s what we learned about Sarina Wiegman’s side after victory in Wolverhampton.
England still getting into gear
The quality will need to improve in time for this summer’s tournament, but there were glimpses of promise from England throughout the game.
Lauren Hemp, Beth Mead and Leah Williamson all excelled in their respective roles, providing a particular dynamism in England’s attacking line.
On occasions some shakiness was still present and Belgium managed to pick holes and that will need to be chiselled out by July.
Williamson well-suited to midfield
Leah Williamson’s role under Sarina Wiegman is lightyears away from what it was in teams of England past. Now captaining the side, she has coupled her authoritative defensive stature with her ball-playing ability to transform into a crucial midfielder.
Williamson has proven that she is better deployed in that position over recent games. Her pinpoint ball to Lauren Hemp in the first half was irrefutable evidence that her abilities are wasted when used in the Lionesses’ defence. Effortlessly spraying the ball around the pitch on Thursday evening, her new role could bring this cutting edge this summer.
Mead making herself at home in the front line
Set your clocks back by 12 months and you will be in an era where the manager of a national team believed Beth Mead wouldn’t make the grade.
She missed out on Hege Riise’s Tokyo 2020 Olympic team, but she’s now one of the most certain starting players in the squad. Her form at Arsenal was in a class of its own in the domestic season; now that’s the case for her country too.
No Houghton, no problem
When Wiegman opted against selecting former captain Steph Houghton for her final Euros squad, it marked the end of an era; a player with 121 caps and five major tournaments under her belt no longer being present.
The defence seems to be coping well without her, and the second-half combination of Millie Bright and Alex Greenwood has markedly few flaws in comparison to defences of old.
Belgium, ranked 20th in the world, are of a similar calibre to 21st-ranked Austria who are in England’s group in the summer. This was a performance which augured particularly well.
Shooting needs to sharpen up
In front of goal, something critical seemed amiss against Belgium. Three second-half goals may paint a rather rosy picture, but in fact the attack’s finishing was far from clinical. That is something which needs to sharpen up across the tournament – or the team could be left with a significant Achilles heel on the biggest stage.
Invaluable chance to grow women’s football could be lost due to small grounds
By Daniel Storey, i‘s chief football writer
The capacity of the Etihad Academy is 7,000. Not only is it comfortably the smallest stadium at this summer’s tournament, it is the smallest capacity stadium used for any women’s European Championship or World Cup match since 1997. Given that attendances in that edition averaged at 2,382, and considering women’s football’s rapid rise since, it strikes as an extraordinary move.
At the Women’s World Cup in France in 2019, when advertising for the tournament in some cities was abject, the smallest capacity stadium used was the Stade des Alpes in Grenoble that seated 18,000. Of the eight regular venues this summer (Wembley and Old Trafford will only be used once each), half have a capacity smaller than all of those used in France.
Over a quarter of scheduled matches will take place in stadiums with a capacity of 12,000 or less. Matches at the Brentford Community Stadium, Rotherham’s New York Stadium and Leigh Sports Village have also sold out.
England’s matches are affected. Their first group match at Old Trafford against Austria at Old Trafford – capacity 74,000 – has sold out, so it’s little surprise that their other group games at Brighton’s Amex Stadium and Southampton’s St Mary’s have gone the same way given both have less than half the capacity of Old Trafford.
Is this not a significant misstep? Having demand that outstrips supply is something to provoke pride, but having members of the public – probably tens of thousands – of the public unable to attend England’s matches is a crying shame. England has 18 stadiums larger in capacity than St Mary’s and 22 bigger than the Amex. Why has their selection process been so conservative?
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