European Football Championship: European Championship draw: DFB women are already threatening England in the group

The German footballers are looking forward to Lausanne. The groups for the European Championships from July 2nd to 27th in Switzerland will be drawn in the Convention Center today (6 p.m./ARD live stream). The record winner (eight titles) is placed in pot 1 – the opponents are the European champions from England or the Italians, against whom they recently lost 1:2 in Bochum. The Olympic bronze medalist could also face the Netherlands and traditionally strong Swedes in the preliminary round.

The DFB is represented at the UEFA ceremony by national coach Christian Wück, who will be playing his first tournament with the German women next year, president Bernd Neuendorf, deputy Sabine Mammitzsch and sports director Nia Künzer. Star guests include former internationals Leonardo Bonucci, Sami Khedira and Xherdan Shaqiri. The German national team lost the last European Championship final against England in 2022 at Wembley.

16 teams qualified. Neighbor Austria missed the tournament in the play-offs against Poland. The seeding list – with the exception of the host team from Switzerland – is based on the ranking of the league phase of the Women’s European Qualifiers.

Switzerland is seeded first in Pot 1, so the hosts form the head of Group A. The German selection, the world champions from Spain and France are the other three seeded teams and will be drawn into first place in Groups B to D. Pot 2 is made up of Italy, Iceland, Denmark and England, Pot 3 is made up of the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway and Belgium, Pot 4 is Finland, Poland, Portugal and Wales. Four groups of four will be drawn. The top two groups reach the quarterfinals.

Switzerland will play the opening game in Basel’s St. Jakob-Park on July 2nd. The final is also in Switzerland’s largest stadium, which has a capacity of 34,050 spectators at the European Championships. The semi-finals will be held in Zurich (23,150) and Geneva (28,150). Bern (29,650) is another large European Championship arena.

St. Gallen (16,100) and Lucerne (14,550) have significantly smaller capacities. In Sion (8150) and Thun (8150) the games are played in front of fewer than 10,000 fans. In Thun and Bern, natural turf – according to UEFA’s specifications – is to be laid on top of the artificial turf.

UEFA and the Swiss organizers are aiming for a sold-out tournament and a record number of spectators: there were 574,875 visitors to the 2022 European Championship in England. In addition, a total of over 500 million people are expected to watch the TV. There are 720,000 tickets available for the 31 games in the eight stadiums, with over 200,000 gone before the draw. They cost between 25 and 90 Swiss francs (around 27 to 97 euros).

Switzerland is aiming high as a European Championship host. Ticket sales started on October 1st with an event on the Jungfraujoch. “Summit of Emotions” is the slogan of the tournament. UEFA women’s football boss Nadine Keßler, once a world-class player at VfL Wolfsburg, speaks of the greatest event in Swiss sporting history – regardless of the 1954 Men’s World Cup and the 1928 and 1948 Winter Olympics in St. Moritz as well as the 2008 European Men’s Football Championship, which the Swiss organized together with Austria.

The 36-year-old is citing, among other things, the expected international TV response. Kessler is “not concerned” that the women’s European Championship partially overlaps with the men’s Club World Cup in the USA (June 14th to July 13th).