Women’s Euro 2025 format explained: What teams have qualified and how does the tournament work?
The 2025 Women’s European Championship takes place in Switzerland this summer.
It’s the 14th edition of the tournament and gets underway on 2nd July, with Switzerland beating a combined bid from the Nordic countries to host the tournament. The tournament will take place over three weeks, with the final set for 27th July.
Here’s everything you need to know about how the Women’s Euro 2025 works, and who’s involved.
Which teams will feature at Women’s Euro 2025 and how have they qualified?
There are 16 nations involved at Women’s Euro 2025, with Switzerland automatically qualifying as the host country. Qualifying for the tournament changed ahead of Women’s Euro 2025, with the aim of making things a bit more difficult for the big nations than previously.
Qualifying was split into three leagues, the first two holding four groups and the third league holding five, to mirror the Uefa Nations League format. The top two of each group in League A automatically qualified for the final tournament, with the bottom two advancing to the play-offs.
The top three of each group in League B qualified for the play-offs, as well as the best fourth-placed side with Switzerland — who were in League B — already guaranteed a spot. The winner of each League C group, and the three best runners-up qualified for the play-offs. Seven teams then qualified through the play-offs, to go with the eight League A sides and Switzerland.
Fourteen of the 16 teams at Women’s Euro 2025 were also involved at Women’s Euro 2022, with Northern Ireland and Austria the two to miss out. They’re replaced by first-time qualifiers Wales and Poland.
England are the defending champions and their qualification wasn’t as straightforward as they would have hoped, finishing second in their group behind France. Although both, obviously, qualified. World champions Spain topped their qualifying group ahead of Denmark, while Italy, Netherlands, Germany and Iceland also qualified through their League A finish.
Poland, Wales, Portugal, Finland, Belgium, Norway and Sweden were the play-off winners.
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Women’s Euro 2025 confirmed teams
- Switzerland – Hosts
- Germany – Group A4 winners
- Spain – Group A2 winners
- Iceland – Group A4 runners-up
- Denmark – Group A2 runners-up
- France – Group A3 winners
- England – Group A3 runners-up
- Italy – Group A1 winners
- Netherlands – Group A1 runners-up
- Portugal – Play-off winners
- Norway – Play-off winners
- Finland – Play-off winners
- Poland – Play-off winners
- Sweden – Play-off winners
- Belgium – Play-off winners
- Wales – Play-off winners
How does the Women’s Euro 2025 group stage work?
The Women’s Euro 2025 group stage is as simple as you’d like, following the standard tournaments with even less faff. As there are only 16 teams involved, these are split into four groups of four.
The groups follow a round-robin single-game format, with each nation playing each other once. At the end of the group stage, the top two teams in each group will advance to the quarter-finals. There’s no spots for the best third-placed teams as we’ve seen in the men’s games.
To try to limit environmental impact, the schedule has been split into two different geographical clusters. The west zone consists of Bern, Geneva, Sion and Thun, which will play host to Groups A and B. The east zone includes Basel, Lucerne, St Gallen and Zurich, which will host Groups C and D. The only exception is Switzerland’s first game in Group A, which will take place in Basel — as the official opening match, even though it is the second game of the tournament.
All four groups are really interesting, but Group D is particularly fascinating. Defending champions England will reunite with France, having already faced them in qualifying, Euro 2019 winners Netherlands also an opponent. And then there’s the small matter of a rivalry with Wales. Group C is also mouth-watering as record holders Germany will have to get through Denmark and Sweden, as well as Poland.
- Group A: Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, Finland
- Group B: Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Italy
- Group C: Germany, Poland, Denmark, Sweden
- Group D: France, England, Wales, Netherlands
How does the Women’s Euro 2025 knockout stage work?
Like the groups, the knockout stage is straightforward too. The winners of Group A will face the runners-up of Group B, and vice versa. And the same goes for Groups C and D. These four ties continue the east-west split, with Groups A and B playing their quarter-finals in either Geneva or Bern, while Groups C and D play their quarter-finals in Zurich or Basel.
The order is slightly different, to try to maintain fairness in terms of rest periods. The quarter-final between the Group C winners and Group D runners-up will be played a day before the quarter-final between the Group B winners and Group A runners-up. That’s because the winners of these two ties will meet in the semi-final, and Uefa want to minimise the rest-day difference between the semi-finalists.
As with the Men’s European Championship, there will be no third-placed play-off in Switzerland, and there hasn’t been one at the Women’s Euros since 1993.
