On Sunday evening, England will meet Germany, who have won the title eight times, in the final of the European Championship. Who is the favorite and which players to watch out for?
Alessia Russo celebrates England’s 3-0 win over Sweden in the semifinals.
When and where does the European Championship final take place?
The final kicks off at 6pm Central European Time on Sunday 31 July at Wembley in London. SRF 2 will broadcast the game live, as will ARD and the BBC. 87,000 spectators are expected to watch the final in England’s largest football stadium. This is a record for a European Championship final.
But that’s not the first record set at this tournament. As reported by Uefa, 487,683 spectators have attended EM games so far – with the final, the mark of half a million viewers has been cracked. The European Championship in England thus clearly surpassed the previous record, in 2017 in the Netherlands 240,055 came to the games.
Who are the favourites?
The English are slightly favored. You have already scored 20 goals in five games at this European Championship, Germany have 13. England also have a broader squad, with the Women’s Premier League probably the strongest league in the world – and they enjoy home advantage. England won 3-1 in their last meeting last February.
The statistics still speak against a home win for the English women. England have lost against no one as often as against Germany: 21 times in 27 matches. There has never been a victory for the English women against the Germans at a European Championship. In 2009, the two teams faced each other for the last time at a European Championship, England lost the final 2:6.
While England’s strengths lie particularly in the offensive, it’s exactly the opposite in Germany. The Germans have a defense that is difficult to overcome and have only conceded one goal at the European Championship – an own goal.
Germany advances to the final thanks to a 2-1 win against France.
How was the way from England and Germany to the final?
Both teams finished the preliminary round with three wins and no goals conceded. England trailed Spain 2-1 in the quarter-finals until just before the end and had to go into extra time, but held on to a 4-0 win against Sweden in the semi-finals.
Germany beat Austria 2-0 in the quarter-finals and won the semi-finals against France 2-1.
Too weak for the Olympics, now EM record scorer: Beth Mead.
Who are the key players?
- Beth Mead (27 years, Arsenal): Mead didn’t make the England squad at last year’s Olympics; she was judged too bad. But at the European Championship, Mead is the success factor in the English attack, with six goals she set the record of the current FCZ trainer Inka Grings. Mead is considered an all-rounder on the offensive, in addition to six goals she already has five assists on her account.
- Alexandra Popp (31 years old, VfL Wolfsburg): Like Mead, Popp has scored six goals at this European Championship, two of them in the 2-1 semi-final against France. Unlike the all-rounder Mead, Popp is a strong header in the penalty area. The German won the Champions League with Wolfsburg in 2013 and 2014, and was Olympic champion with the national team in Rio de Janeiro in 2016. So Popp has the experience in big finals ahead of her opponent Mead. A German satirical magazine had written that the German men’s coach Hansi Flick had nominated an “Alexander Popp” for the World Cup in Qatar. Alexandra Popp took it with humor, as the tweet below shows.
After social media posts compared AlexandrA Popp’s (@alexpopp11) strength and playing style to male players
the #GER striker arrived at today’s media conference as a moustachioed Alexander Popp….#WEURO2022 ? pic.twitter.com/YyUZe2dOqA
— Neil Barker (@Mockneyrebel) July 29, 2022
Who are the trainers?
- Sarina Wiegman (England): The Dutchwoman knows how to win a European Championship title as a coach, and she did that with her home country in 2017. Wiegman, 52, has been England manager since last year and has not lost in 19 games so far, drawing only against Canada and Spain. If Wiegman also wins the title with the English, she would be the first coach to triumph at the European Championship with two different teams.
- Martina Voss-Tecklenburg (Germany): Like her opponent, the German coach knows the feeling of winning a European title. Voss-Tecklenburg, 54, was a four-time European champion as a player (1989, 1991, 1995, 1997); however, she has not yet won a title as a national coach. Between 2012 and 2018 she was the coach of the Swiss women’s soccer team and managed the first World Cup qualification with the Swiss women in 2015.
Sarina Wiegman has not lost a game since taking charge at England 2021.
Who won the last EM?
The Germans are the record winners with eight European Championship titles; for England it would be the first title.
What do the winners get?
Uefa has doubled the bonuses for women compared to the EM 2017. But that is only a small approximation of the prize money that can be won among men. At the men’s European Championship 2021, 313 million euros in prizes were paid out; for women it is – despite doubling – 16 million. Among other things, Uefa justifies the difference by saying that a men’s European Championship would generate income of around 2 billion euros, while the women’s tournament had to be subsidized up to now.