UEFA Women's Euro 2022

UEFA Women's Euro 2022
Tournament details
Host country	England
Dates	6–31 July
Teams	16
Venue(s)	10 (in 8 host cities)
Final positions
Champions	England (1st title)
Runners-up	Germany
Tournament statistics
Matches played	31
Goals scored	95 (3.06 per match)
Attendance	574,865 (18,544 per match)
Top scorer(s)	Beth Mead; Alexandra Popp; (6 goals each)
Best player(s)	Beth Mead
Best young player	Lena Oberdorf
	← 2017 2025 →

The 2022 UEFA European Women's Football Championship, commonly referred to as UEFA Women's Euro 2022 or simply Euro 2022, was the 13th edition of the UEFA Women's Championship, the quadrennial international football championship organised by UEFA for the women's national teams of Europe. It was the second edition since it was expanded to 16 teams. The tournament was hosted by England, and was originally scheduled to take place from 7 July to 1 August 2021.^[1] However, the COVID-19 pandemic in Europe in early 2020 resulted in subsequent postponements of the 2020 Summer Olympics and UEFA Euro 2020 to summer 2021, so the tournament was rescheduled for 6 to 31 July 2022^[2]^[3]^[4] – unlike some other major tournaments which were similarly delayed, it was also re-titled. England last hosted the tournament in 2005, which had been the final tournament to feature just eight teams.^[5]^[6]

Defending champions Netherlands, who won UEFA Women's Euro 2017 as hosts, were eliminated in the quarter-finals by France. Hosts England won their first UEFA Women's Championship title by beating Germany 2–1 after extra time in the final, held at Wembley Stadium in London.^[7] As winners, they competed in the inaugural 2023 Women's Finalissima against Brazil, winners of the 2022 Copa América Femenina,^[8] claiming the title via a penalty shootout.

The video assistant referee (VAR), as well as goal-line technology, were used in the final tournament.^[9]

Host selection

England were the only country to submit a bid before the deadline.^[10] Hungary and Austria had previously announced interest in submitting bids to host.^[11]^:808 England were confirmed as hosts at the UEFA Executive Committee meeting in Dublin, Republic of Ireland, on 3 December 2018.^[12]^[6]^[5] They had previously hosted the Women's Euro in 2005, described as a watershed in terms of developing the sport, with stadium and television audiences having exceeded expectations.^[11]^:800

A January 2022 study debated the benefits of England hosting Euro 2022 in terms of sports tourism – though mainly for the men's game, England was already a global hub for football – or for the improvements major sporting events can bring to a host, as no new stadiums or infrastructure would be required in the nation; it suggested that the hosts "intended to leverage further the development of the women's game in England and enhance the country's image as one of the main hubs of women's football."^[11]^:800

Qualification

A total of 48 UEFA nations entered the competition (including Cyprus which entered for the first time at senior women's level, and Kosovo which entered their first Women's Euro), and with the hosts England qualifying automatically, the other 47 teams competed in the qualifying competition to determine the remaining 15 spots in the final tournament.^[13] In a change from previous qualifying competitions, the preliminary round had been abolished and all entrants started from the qualifying group stage. The qualifying competition consists of two rounds:^[14]

Qualifying group stage: The 47 teams were drawn into nine groups: two groups of six teams and seven groups of five teams. Each group was played in home-and-away round-robin format. The nine group winners and the three best runners-up (not counting results against the sixth-placed team) qualified directly for the final tournament, while the remaining six runners-up advanced to the play-offs.
Play-offs: The six teams were drawn into three ties to play home-and-away two-legged matches to determine the last three qualified teams.

The draw for the qualifying group stage was held on 21 February 2019 in Nyon. The qualifying group stage took place from August 2019 to December 2020, while the play-offs took place in April 2021, previously scheduled for October 2020.^[14]^[5]

Qualified teams

In February 2022, the Russian team was suspended following their country's invasion of Ukraine.^[15] UEFA later announced on 2 May 2022 that Russian teams were banned from every European competition, disqualifying Russia from the Women's Euro 2022. Portugal, whom Russia defeated in the play-offs, would take part instead.^[16]

14 of the 16 qualified teams had also taken part in the 2017 edition. Northern Ireland was the only team to make its debut at the 2022 finals. Finland meanwhile returned after missing the previous tournament. Scotland was the only team present in 2017 that failed to qualify for these finals apart from the banned Russia.

The following teams qualified for the final tournament.

Order	Team	Method of qualification	Date of qualification	Finals appearance	Last appearance	Previous best performance	FIFA ranking at start of draw
1	England	Hosts	3 December 2018	9th	2017	Runners-up (1984, 2009)	8th
2	Germany	Group I winners	23 October 2020	11th	2017	Champions (1989, 1991, 1995, 1997, 2001, 2005, 2009, 2013)	3rd
3	Netherlands	Group A winners	23 October 2020	4th	2017	Champions (2017)	4th
4	Denmark	Group B winners	27 October 2020	10th	2017	Runners-up (2017)	15th
5	Norway	Group C winners	27 October 2020	12th	2017	Champions (1987, 1993)	12th
6	Sweden	Group F winners	27 October 2020	11th	2017	Champions (1984)	2nd
7	France	Group G winners	27 November 2020	7th	2017	Quarter-finals (2009, 2013, 2017)	5th
8	Belgium	Group H winners	1 December 2020	2nd	2017	Group stage (2017)	19th
9	Iceland	Group F runners-up^{[^]}	1 December 2020	4th	2017	Quarter-finals (2013)	16th
10	Spain	Group D winners	18 February 2021	4th	2017	Semi-finals (1997)	10th
11	Finland	Group E winners	19 February 2021	4th	2013	Semi-finals (2005)	25th
12	Austria	Group G runners-up^{[^]}	23 February 2021	2nd	2017	Semi-finals (2017)	21st
13	Italy	Group B runners-up^{[^]}	24 February 2021	12th	2017	Runners-up (1993, 1997)	14th
–	~~Russia~~^[!]	~~qualifying play-offs winner~~	13 April 2021	~~5th~~	2017	Group stage (1997, 2001, 2009, 2013, 2017)	24th
14	Switzerland	qualifying play-offs winner	13 April 2021	2nd	2017	Group stage (2017)	20th
15	Northern Ireland	qualifying play-offs winner	13 April 2021	1st	—	Debut	48th
16	Portugal^[!]	qualifying play-offs lucky loser	2 May 2022	2nd	2017	Group stage (2017)	30th

Notes

^
The best three runners-up among all nine groups qualified directly for the final tournament.
^
Russia originally qualified by winning their play-off 1–0 on aggregate. However, Russia were suspended by FIFA and UEFA on 28 February 2022. UEFA replaced Russia with Portugal on 2 May 2022.^[17]

Final draw

The final draw took place in Manchester, England, on 28 October 2021 at 18:00 CEST.^[18]

It was originally set on 6 November 2020, but had been postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.^[19] The 16 teams were drawn into four groups of four teams. The hosts were assigned to position A1 in the draw while the other teams were seeded according to their coefficient ranking following the end of the qualifying stage, calculated based on the following:^[20]

UEFA Women's Euro 2017 final tournament and qualifying competition (20%)
2019 FIFA Women's World Cup final tournament and qualifying competition (40%)
UEFA Women's Euro 2022 qualifying competition (group stage only, excluding play-offs) (40%)

Pot 1
Team	Coeff	Rank
England ^H	41,443	3
Netherlands ^TH	43,961	1
Germany	41,924	2
France	40,898	4

Pot 2
Team	Coeff	Rank
Sweden	39,714	5
Spain	38,913	6
Norway	38,758	7
Italy	36,399	8

Pot 3
Team	Coeff	Rank
Denmark	35,265	9
Belgium	34,951	10
Switzerland	33,693	11
Austria	33,693	12

Pot 4
Team	Coeff	Rank
Iceland	33,458	13
Russia^[!]	30,117	15
Finland	29,765	16
Northern Ireland	19,526	27

^H Hosts (assigned to position A1 in the draw)
^TH Title holders

Notes

^
Russia were suspended by FIFA and UEFA on 28 February 2022, with Portugal being chosen by UEFA to take their place on 2 May 2022. This would not have affected the draw, since both teams would be placed in pot 4.

Venues

Meadow Lane in Nottingham and London Road in Peterborough were initially included on the list of stadiums when the Football Association submitted the bid to host the tournament. These were changed with the City Ground in Nottingham and St Mary's in Southampton due to UEFA requirements.^[21]^[22] The City Ground was replaced by Leigh Sports Village when the final list of venues was confirmed in August 2019.^[23] On 23 February 2020, Old Trafford in Trafford (Greater Manchester) was confirmed as the venue of the opening match featuring England,^[24] with Wembley Stadium to host the final. For Euro 2022, UEFA announced 10 venues.^[25]^[26]^[27]

London (Wembley)	Manchester (Old Trafford)	Sheffield	Southampton
Wembley Stadium	Old Trafford	Bramall Lane	St Mary's Stadium
Capacity: 90,000	Capacity: 74,879	Capacity: 32,702	Capacity: 32,505

Brighton and Hove	London Manchester Sheffield Southampton Brighton and Hove Milton Keynes Rotherham Leigh
Falmer Stadium
Capacity: 31,800

Milton Keynes
Stadium MK
Capacity: 30,500

London (Brentford)	Rotherham	Leigh	Manchester (Bradford)
Brentford Community Stadium	New York Stadium	Leigh Sports Village	Academy Stadium
Capacity: 17,250	Capacity: 12,021	Capacity: 12,000	Capacity: 7,000

The announcement of hosting plans in 2019 drew criticism from The Guardian, which noted that the bid had emphasised the use of Wembley Stadium, while the plan was only to use it for the final.^[11]^:808 It and others also criticised that though the tournament would use stadiums in different parts of the country, none were in the North East.^[11]^:808^[28] This geographical concern was also a main subject of negative reactions on social media. A 2019 study noted that women's football had developed greatly following the 2005 Euro in the North West region in which it had been held, with a 2020 study noting that the North East was a prominent location for women's football.^[11]^:811–812 A lack of stadiums chosen in the Midlands also saw criticism closer to the tournament.^[28]

Stadium size was also criticised, with major complaints coming from Iceland's Sara Björk Gunnarsdóttir; the 7,000 capacity Academy Stadium being the main focus, which would be limited to 4,700 capacity for the tournament due to UEFA restrictions preventing the use of standing capacity. The decision to include the stadium was labelled "embarrassing" and "disrespectful", and did not reflect the growth of women's football.^[29] The Leigh Sports Village would also be restricted to 8,100 instead of its typical 12,000 capacity due to the same restrictions.^[30]

Match officials

On 19 April 2022, UEFA announced the selected match officials for the tournament.^[31]^[32] On 27 April, Belgian official Ella De Vries was added as an assistant VAR.^[33]^[34]

Referees

Ivana Martinčić
Jana Adámková
Rebecca Welch
Lina Lehtovaara
Stéphanie Frappart
Riem Hussein
Iuliana Demetrescu
Marta Huerta de Aza
Tess Olofsson
Esther Staubli
Kateryna Monzul
Emikar Calderas Barrera
Cheryl Foster

Assistant referees

Sara Telek
Mary Blanco Bolívar
Sanja Rođak-Karšić
Polyxeni Irodotou
Lucie Ratajová
Sian Massey-Ellis
Lisa Rashid
Karolin Kaivoja
Élodie Coppola
Manuela Nicolosi
Katrin Rafalski
Chrysoula Kourompylia
Anita Vad
Francesca Di Monte
Franca Overtoom
Paulina Baranowska
Michelle O'Neill
Petruța Iugulescu
Mária Súkeníková
Staša Špur
Guadalupe Porras Ayuso
Almira Spahić
Susanne Küng
Maryna Striletska
Migdalia Rodríguez Chirino

VARs

Ella De Vries
Chris Kavanagh
Benoît Millot
Maïka Vanderstichel
Christian Dingert
Harm Osmers
Maurizio Mariani
Paolo Valeri
Pol van Boekel
Dennis Higler
Bartosz Frankowski
Tomasz Kwiatkowski
Luís Godinho
Tiago Martins
Guillermo Cuadra Fernández
José María Sánchez Martínez

Support officials

Ivana Projkovska
Lorraine Watson

Squads

Each national team had to submit a squad of 23 players, three of whom must be goalkeepers. If a player was injured or ill severely enough to prevent her participation in the tournament before her team's first match, she could be replaced by another player.^[14]

Group stage

The provisional match schedule was confirmed by the UEFA Executive Committee during their meeting in Nyon, Switzerland on 4 December 2019.^[35]

The final match schedule was confirmed by the UEFA on 2 May 2022.^[36]

The group winners and runners-up advanced to the quarter-finals.

Tiebreakers

In the group stage, teams were ranked according to points (3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 points for a loss), and if tied on points, the following tiebreaking criteria were applied, in the order given, to determine the rankings (Regulations Articles 18.01 and 18.02):^[14]

Points in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
Goal difference in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
Goals scored in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
If more than two teams are tied, and after applying all head-to-head criteria above, a subset of teams are still tied, all head-to-head criteria above are reapplied exclusively to this subset of teams;
Goal difference in all group matches;
Goals scored in all group matches;
Penalty shoot-out if only two teams have the same number of points, and they met in the last round of the group and are tied after applying all criteria above (not used if more than two teams have the same number of points, or if their rankings are not relevant for qualification for the next stage);
Lower disciplinary points (red card = 3 points, yellow card = 1 point, expulsion for two yellow cards in one match = 3 points);
UEFA coefficient ranking for the final draw.

All times are local, BST (UTC+1).^[37]

Group A

Pos	Team v t e	Pld	W	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	England (H)	3	3	0	14	0	+14	9	Advance to knockout stage
2	Austria	3	2	1	3	1	+2	6	Advance to knockout stage
3	Norway	3	1	2	4	10	−6	3
4	Northern Ireland	3	0	3	1	11	−10	0

Source: UEFA
(H) Hosts

6 July 2022

20:00

England	1–0	Austria
Mead 16'	Report

Old Trafford, Manchester

Attendance: 68,871^[38]

Referee: Marta Huerta de Aza (Spain)

7 July 2022