Well, the newest teams still should be able to play qualifiers in general. Even if they still aren't likely to win games, being in league C is way better for them, since they're not going to get blown out by other league C teams, so wins are still gonna be way more within reach. Heck, Kosovo is a pretty new team (newer than Andorra), but already has a respectable number of wins under their belt. I mean, that list of more-established team in your second post are relatively evenly matched against each other, so bringing up their blowouts in the older format doesn't really matter much for what will be happening in league C...
Kosovo has actual professional players and a population that is about 23 times higher than Andorra's, that's the difference.
Latest from FIFA: For women’s football, the current international match calendar structure will remain unchanged until 2025, with the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2027 and 2031 hosts to be decided in 2024 and 2025 respectively. The creation of a new FIFA Women’s Club World Cup™, a new FIFA Futsal Women’s World Cup™ and the expansion of the Olympic Games Women’s tournament from 12 to 16 teams have also been endorsed. The principles also include proposals to revise FIFA’s youth tournament inventory – including expanded annual Under-17 tournaments, both for boys and girls. So it will mean for the next two seasons starting in September 2023: September Type I 2 games Nations League Matchday 1&2 October Type I 2 games Nations League Matchday 3&4 November Type I 2 games Nations League Matchday 5&6 February Type II 3 games Nations League finals + promotion/relegation April Type I 2 games Euro qualifiers June Type I 2 games Euro qualifiers July -August Paris Olympics Subject to final confirmation of the women's international match calendar by FIFA, the competition is planned to be played over two seasons, as follows: The UEFA Nations League phase will be played from autumn 2023 to spring 2024. The UEFA European Qualifiers phase will be played from spring 2024 to autumn 2024. Type I: release of players to national associations: Monday to Tuesday night (following week). Type II: release of players to national associations: Monday to Wednesday night (following week). Type III: release of players to national associations: Monday to Saturday night (following week). Final competitions of the FIFA Women’s World Cup™, the Women’s Olympic Football Tournament and blocked periods for the championships for women’s “A” representative teams of the Confederations: Monday morning of the week preceding the week when the relevant final competition starts. Players must be released by the association on the morning of the day after their team’s last match in the tournament.
Just to come back on the qualification process: as already mentioned the top two teams in each group from League A will qualify directly for the Euros and the remaining places will be distributed via the play-offs. Total 8 direct qualification 7 via play-offs and 1 host. European Qualifiers play-offs for UEFA Women's EURO 2025 The remaining slots will be contested over two rounds of home-and-away European Qualifiers play-offs. The play-off path illustrated below may be adjusted to take into account the performance of the team(s) of the host association(s). In the first round, the teams finishing third and fourth in League A will play the winners and three best-ranked runners-up in League C. The eight winners progress to the second round. The four group winners and two best-ranked runners-up in League B will be drawn into six ties against the remaining two runners-up and four third-placed teams in League B. The six winners progress to the second round. In the second round, the teams will be drawn into seven ties, with the seven winners progressing to the final tournament.
Hosting decision delayed to the next Executive committee in April. They only approved the rules for the tournament. Competition regulations The UEFA Executive Committee approved the regulations of the UEFA European Under-21 Championship 2023–25 and the regulations of the 2023–25 UEFA European Women's Championship.
Polish FA invited big media outlets to National Stadium in Warsaw on 2nd February. Head of UEFA woso - Nadine Kessler was also invited but since UEFA postponed the date for EURO host selection from January to April she had to resign (as not to appear biased I guess). Topic: Strategy for Women's Football development in Poland. You can probably expect nation wide presentation of Polish bid (beyond this small video teaser below which was published last autumn)
Switzerland is the bid which makes the most logical sense since they have never hosted a women's Euro before, regularly qualify for most Euros and Women's World Cups, and have proposed exactly which host cities would be used in advance. If Switzerland gets it I would consider spending all my money to travel there in 2025 and see some of the games, assuming the competition format remains the same as it was last year. France shouldn't even be allowed to bid since they have already hosted both a men's Euro and Women's World Cup in very recent years and will also be hosting the 2024 Olympics just a year before. Of course, their bid will still be considered because of money and because they are desperate to try and win a first major trophy on the women's side on home soil just like England did last year. But they don't deserve that chance. They already had every chance to win the 2019 WWC on home soil and failed, and will already have another chance to win an Olympics there in 2024. I would also gladly take Poland as the host but they don't have as much women's soccer tradition as the other countries that are bidding which will hurt their cause.
Well as far as UEFA intrest goes... Poland's bid has an asset that trumps any woso traditions - a huge soccer fan base. 70% of all Poles (~26 mln ppl) follow football to a various degree (Europe average is 49%)* 63% of Polish women (~12 mln ppl) follow football (mostly men's) to a various degree (Europe average is 35%)* *data from 2019 Switzerland whole population is just under 9 mln. UEFA can count. Promoting woso in Poland equals big fan base in the future and more money.
Choosing Poland would do a lot to develop interest in women's football in Eastern Europe as a whole, I think.
The politics and scandals inside the FFF really should not make us a viable candidate. The president and the general director will both get sacked very soon if they don't resign.
Yep, the French police and organisation have been pushing to ban away travel in League games and therefore were totally unprepared following years of not having proper away fans in France.
I was reading the Wikipedia page about the Euro qualifiers, make of it what you will in terms of credibility but it seems like the plan for the "qualifiers" is for them to be divised in leagues (League A, B, C etc.) like they will be for the Nations League. It baffles me why they want to have the Nations League later this year with one format (ok, fair enough I guess although I've never been a fan of the Nations League) and then qualifiers with EXACTLY the same format as the Nations League starting in spring 2024. What's the point of having two formats that are exactly the same? Why not have the Nations League and a regular Euro qualifying campaign without any leagues like the men have even with the Nations League?
You just need to look on the UEFA website and the whole format is explained there. UEFA have also explained why they have moved towards the Nations league format on their website. From what I read there are criticism on the Nation league format because nations in the B League don't get enough interesting games for them ie they don't play big teams any more except if they get promoted.
Well I don't see any reasonable justification for having the Nations League format twice both in the Nations League and in Euro qualifiers. Even the men don't have that and as you said one of the problems is definitely teams from League B not being able to play against the top teams. This is another mess by UEFA..
Sure, Poland's overall population is much larger than Switzerland's. But all that matters to the Polish soccer fanbase is the goalscoring exploits of Robert Lewandowski on the men's side, and rightfully so considering his incredible scoring record at club level for Bayern and now Barcelona. There is no Polish women's soccer player who is even a household name whereas for Switzerland most women's soccer fans know who Ramona Bachmann is. Even investing a lot of money into the cause isn't going to just all of a sudden develop talent just like that and make Polish women's soccer competitive. Swiss women's soccer is already competitive on the international level and has been for years.
I sure agree that Switzerland accomplished much more than Poland on the women's soccer side, but it's unfair to say that there is no household name at all: most women's soccer fans know Ewa Pajor's name and have seen her play on score for such a top-club as Wolfsburg.
Here a household name for you... current UWCL top scorer - EWA PAJOR Conny Pohlers 🤜🤛 Ewa Pajor🐺🟢 Learn from the best, as two legendary @VfL_Frauen star strikers come together in episode one of our new series, 𝐑𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐠𝐧𝐢𝐬𝐞 𝐆𝐚𝐦𝐞 🎥Watch in full on YouTube: ⬇️#UWCL // #QueensOfFootball— UEFA Women’s Champions League (@UWCL) February 27, 2023 (FW) Ewa Pajor age 26 (arguably top 3 striker in Europe) Poland WNT: 2013 - now (75 caps, 53 goals) - EURO U17 Champion 2013 2015 - now: VfL Wolfsburg (166 caps, 113 goals) - UWCL: 39 caps 16 goals - UWCL: runner-up x2, semi-final x1, quarter-final x3 - UWCL: squad of the season x2 - UWCL: current edition top scorer - German league champion x5 - German league top scorer x1 - German league current 2nd best top scorer and 3rd best assist maker - German Cup winner x7 ...and here are some other names (GK) Kararzyna Kiedrzynek age 32 (arguably top 10 GK all time in woso) Poland WNT: 2011- now (52 caps) (injuried for the better part of last year, will leave Wolfsburg this summer) 2020 - now: VfL Wolfsburg (27 caps) - UWCL: quarter-final x1 - German league champion x1 - German Cup winner x2 2013-2020: Paris Saint-Germain (121 caps) - UWCL: runner-up x2, semi-final x2, quarter-final x1, - UWCL: squad of the season 2015/16 - French league: runner-up x6, - French Cup: winner x1, runner up x3 - French league best goalkeeper in 2015/16 and 2016/17 - 4th most capped foreigner in PSG history (after Lawrence, Cruz and Paredes) (DF) Paulina Dudek age 25 (arguably top 10 centre back in Europe) Poland WNT: 2014 - now (38 caps, 4 goals) (injuried since October 2022, is back in training now) - EURO U17 Champion in 2013 2018 - now: Paris Saint-Germian (76 caps, 6 goals) - UWCL: quarter-final x1, semi-final x1, - French league: champion x1, runner-up x2 - French Cup: winner x1, runner-up x1 - French league best XI in 2022 - 5th most capped foreigner in PSG history ... and here are last results POL vs. SUI 21 Feb 2023 SUI 1 - 1 POL (friendly) 17 Feb 2023 POL 0 - 0 SUI (friendly) 04 Sep 2018 POL 0 - 0 SUI (WWC qualifiers) - draw that eliminated SUI from WWC 2019 19 Sep 2017 SUI 2 - 1 POL (WWC qualifiers)
UEFA announce @PlayStation has become a partner of UEFA Women's Football until 2025. They will sponsor the @UWCL, UEFA Women’s EURO 2025, the UEFA European Women’s Under-19 and Under-17 Championships, the UEFA Women’s Futsal EURO and UEFA’s Together @WePlayStrong_ initiative, pic.twitter.com/iCNwUCNG8F— Asif Burhan (@AsifBurhan) March 21, 2023
A household name at club level for sure that I admittedly overlooked. But has she ever helped Poland qualify for a major tournament at international level? No, and that is why she is not really a household name at international level and exactly why I overlooked her. Is it within the realm of possibility that Poland could qualify for Euro 2025 if they weren't hosting? Maybe, if they got a very favorable draw in qualifying (or Nations League, however they do it these days) but definitely pretty unlikely. The draw that you mention may have eliminated Switzerland from qualifying for one tournament, WWC 2019 but it didn't exactly qualify Poland for that tournament either. Switzerland has qualified for far more Euros and WWCs than Poland (none) and that's what it comes down to in the end. One or two players that may do well at high level clubs is not enough- Poland still does not have the overall talent across the board to be a legitimate contender and shows no signs of being able to develop the overall talent level needed to win on the biggest stage no matter how much they invest to try and do it. If you look at the overall starting XI SUI vs POL, Switzerland's is far stronger.