Women's Euro 2025 is upon us – and there's plenty of reason to be excited.
With the elite of the sport gathering for 31 matches across the next month or so, Women's Euro 2025 is set to be even bigger and better than the last edition, with England looking to defend a title on foreign soil for the first time.
St Bernards, glaciers and goals, goals, goals – it promises to be one hell of a summer in Switzerland...
25 reasons to be excited for Women's Euro 2025
1. More cowbell!
The Swiss have no intention of staying neutral as they host the Women’s European Championship for the very first time. Forget your vuvuzelas – fans took cowbells to Euro 2022, so expect plenty of jangling in the stands this summer.
2. A Nordic opener
Euro 2025 kicks off with the big one: Iceland vs Finland?! Oddly, the hosts’ first game doesn’t open the tournament as England’s did in 2022 – instead, it’s the Nordic grudge match three hours earlier, at 5pm UK time on July 2, at the 10,000-capacity Thun Arena. The winner gets to keep the North Pole.
3. Can England retain it?
For the first time, the Lionesses go into a tournament as holders. They’re second-favourites in the odds, behind Spain, just as they were before lifting the trophy three years ago. Fittingly, England plundered 22 goals at Euro 2022 – a tournament record – so how about 25 goals for Euro 2025, eh?
4. Sarina the Carpenter
Not only did Sarina Wiegman construct the England team that won Euro 2022 but she had already won Euro 2017 with the Netherlands, her home nation, so the 55-year-old could complete an extraordinary treble this year. It has been done before, though: as Germany gaffer, Tina Theune bagged back-to-back-to-back European Championships in 1997, 2001 and 2005. Simply the best.
5. Maddli the dog
You can’t have a major international tournament without a cute, cuddly mascot, so step forward, Maddli. She’s named after Madeleine Boll, who was in Sion’s youth team in 1965 until the Swiss FA learned that they were fielding a girl and revoked the 12-year-old’s licence. The 2025 mascot (below) is a St Bernard puppy, although it was unveiled back in November, so expect it to be about 12ft tall now.
6. The Group of Death
No reigning champion has ever gone out in the group stage, but England’s draw is hellish. Only two go through, and they take on France, who finished above them in qualifying; then the Dutch, who finished above them in the ’23-24 Nations League; and then finally...
7. Wales on debut
The Welsh women’s team reached this, their first-ever major tournament, by winning play-offs against Slovakia and the Republic of Ireland. Their reward is a horrific group, but they won’t roll over – and especially not for the English.
8. Infinite Jess
Wales’ presence is reward for Jess Fishlock’s years of service since her debut in 2006. Now 38, the Cardiffian will be the oldest goalscorer in Euros history if she nets – record holder Julie Nelson was just 37 when she registered for Northern Ireland in 2022.
9. Tenuous mountain references
The tournament slogan is ‘The Summit Of Emotions’, and you can assume a commentator will point out that struggling Team X has ‘a mountain to climb’ at the very first opportunity. Ticket sales were launched with a game on a glacier (pictured top right), 3,454m above sea level, featuring ex-Arsenal defender Johan Djourou. Why not?
10. Big crowds
It’s hard to follow Euro 2022 – a Euros-record 87,192 spectators watched the final at Wembley and the biggest capacity here is 35,689 at Basel’s St Jakob-Park – but more than half a million tickets for the 31 games have been sold already: over twice as many as in 2017.
11. Searingly bright lights
Eventually removed from the host venues were Liechtenstein capital Vaduz, whose stadium was too small, and Lausanne, who dropped out to concentrate on staging the Swiss Federal Gymnastics Festival. St Jakob-Park had to change its lighting to bag the final, spending £1m to keep the darkness away.
12. From nine to nein?
Germany’s Euros record is ridiculous: they’ve won eight of the 11 tournaments they’ve contested, including six in a row between 1995 and 2013. They’ve now gone a whole two tournaments without winning the thing, though. Crisis.
13. Terrestrial TV
No need for a subscription to Sky Sports, TNT, DAZN or F00TB4A114EVA.COM – the BBC and ITV will share live coverage of the tournament, with Wales’ first fixture on the Beeb and England’s opener on ITV. Sit back and enjoy.
14. Harder vs Eriksson
In Group C, Denmark vs Sweden will feature Pernille Harder up against her fiancée, Magdalena Eriksson. The couple previously played for Chelsea together, then both switched to Bayern Munich.
15. Italy not being rubbish for once?
Italy and Norway share the record for the most appearances at the European Women’s Championship, missing only one edition each, but Le Azzurre have largely been poor. While they were finalists in 1993 and 1997, Italy haven’t made it to the semis since and ‘boast’ the most losses in Euros history (20).
16. New ball please
For this tournament, Adidas have produced a shiny orb called Konektis (above). Switzerland has four official languages – German, French, Italian and Romansh – but it turns out this has been inspired by none of them: Konektis means ‘connected’ in Esperanto, that artificial dialect the whole planet was meant to be speaking by now.
17. Potential new winners
There’s a fair chance there’ll be a new name on the trophy (if England don’t win it). Due in part to Germany’s previous dominance of the competition, and this being only the 14th edition of the Euros, Spain – the favourites and reigning world champions – have never even reached a final, and neither have fellow contenders France.
18. Poland's premiere
Fourteen of the 16 sides at Euro 2025 also participated at the tournament in 2022; there’s no Austria nor Northern Ireland this time around, though it’s not only Wales who are making their first ever appearance. Poland, too, are ready for their debut, spearheaded by Barcelona hotshot Ewa Pajor.
19. An English boss
The only British coach at Euro 2025 is in charge of… Norway. Teesside-born supremo Gemma Grainger is a former manager of Leeds, Middlesbrough and Wales, agonisingly losing a 2023 World Cup play-off with the latter, but was clearly pining for the fjords.
20. Battle for the Ballon d'Or
Not to be confused with ‘Batlle for Ballon d’Or’, the forlorn campaign for Spain full-back Ona Batlle to claim the honour. La Roja could go five for five in the Ballon d'Or Femenin, however: Alexia Putellas won it in 2021 and ’22; Aitana Bonmati in ’23 and ’24.
21. Goals, goals, goals
The 2022 tournament broke the Euros goals record, with a total of 95 scored across 31 fixtures. It is a milestone that could well be smashed again, even though the leading scorer in qualification, Slovenia’s Lara Prasnikar (nine), didn’t even make it to Switzerland.
22. An English take on VAR
There are no British referees officiating at this tournament, but there are two Romanians and one from the proud European country of Brazil. Emily Carney will run the line, though, with Sian Massey-Ellis on VAR duty, joined by English-based Australian Jarred Gillett.
23. Jostling for 2029
Nations gathering in one place for a month can only mean one thing: a chance to lobby UEFA to stage Euro 2029. Denmark and Sweden plan a joint bid while Italy, Poland, Portugal and Germany all revealed interest in going solo. The hosts will be chosen in December.
24. Iconic moments
Euro 2022 produced many moments that will live forever in England hearts: Georgia Stanway’s blockbuster against Spain, Alessia Russo’s backheel against Sweden and Chloe Kelly’s celebration after scoring the winner in the final. Will July bring more happy memories?
25. Girls getting inspired
The impact of hosting and then winning Euro 2022 was enormous in England: FA figures show that hundreds of thousands more girls have become involved in school football in the host cities alone. For every hero Euro 2025 produces, thousands more will want to follow in their footsteps.
