Women’s Euro 2025 draw – live

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The geeky stat that I’m rather proud of is that no team has ever won the Women’s Euros after being drawn outside of Group A or Group B, and 2009 (England) was the only time that any team from Group C or D has reached the final.

There are some caveats to that, not least that this competition didn’t have more than eight teams until 2009 and only expanded to 16 teams as recently 2017. However, there is a science behind it too. Being in groups A or B means you have more rest in between matches and more time to recover for the knockout fixtures. Group A’s winners generally tend to have the kindest knockout pathway too. If you want the best route to Basel, you want to be in Groups A or B.

Wales will be in the bottom pot, as they get ready for their first ever finals.

Chatting to media colleagues from other countries around Europe here at the SwissTech Convention Centre in Lausanne, there is one team they are all hoping to avoid: England. And it’s not hard to understand why they’d be keen to steer clear of the holders, when teams are picked from Pot 2. Uefa’s decision to seed the draw pots based on performances in the Nations League, rather than by world rankings, has made Pot 3 arguably a lot stronger than Pot 2, where England - ranked fourth in the world - are joined by the teams ranked 12th, 13th and 14th in the world in Denmark, Italy and Iceland respectively. The Lionesses were comfortable 5-1 winners over the Italians in February, to illustrate the variation in strength in that Pot. The odds are, whichever group England are in will probably be the ‘group of death’.

Key dates

• Group stage matchday one: 2-5 July

• Group stage matchday two: 6-9 July

• Group stage matchday three: 10-13 July

• Quarter-finals: 16-19 July

• Semi-finals: 22-23 July

• Final: 27 July

The defending champions will look very different from being winning hosts in 2022.

A reminder of how the play-offs were won.

The venues, with the final, on 27 July being played in Basel.

• St Jakob-Park, Basel

• Stadion Wankdorf, Bern

• Stade de Geneve, Geneva

• Stadion Letzigrund, Zurich

• Arena St Gallen, St Gallen

• Allmend Stadion Luzern, Lucerne

• Arena Thun, Thun

• Stade de Tourbillon, Sion

Preamble

England will be there to defend their crown but Spain, the world champions, will lead the challengers. Wales will be there, too. Here’s those all-important pots. It suggests the English could get a tough draw. It all kicks off on 2 July 2025.

• Pot 1: Spain, Germany, France, Switzerland (hosts go into Group A)

• Pot 2: Italy, Iceland, Denmark, England

• Pot 3: Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Belgium

• Pot 4: Finland, Poland, Portugal, Wales

The draw takes place at 5pm UK time, join me.