World Soccer - UK (2019-10)

Glenn Moore

Women’s Football

Long road

to Wembley

A record 47 countries enter 2021 Euros

The first goal on the road to Wembley

2021 and the Final of the Women’s

European Championship was scored

in the Middle East by a 21-year-old

Floridian who is at college in California.

Not very European you might think,

but Keren Goor attended school and

undertook army service in Israel – long

regarded as being in Europe by football

administrators – and it was in the Ramat

Gan district of Tel Aviv that she scored

Israel’s opening goal against Italy.

The Azzurre eventually went on to

win 3-2 in the first of nine opening-

round victories in the nine ties played

by those European nations who reached

this year’s Women’s World Cup. Those

results suggest that qualifying shocks will

be rare as the continent’s attention turns

towards England and the Euro 2021

finals. Goals, however, will be frequent.

In that opening round, World Cup

finalists Holland beat Estonia 7-0, Euro

2017 runners-up Denmark put eight

past Malta without reply, while Bosnia-

Herzegovina brushed aside Georgia 7-1.

Norway beat Northern Ireland 6-0 and

Belarus despatched Faroe Islands by the

same score. Scotland beat Cyprus 8-0

and Czech Republic thrashed Moldova

7-0. Topping them all were Germany,

who eviscerated Montenegro 10-0 and

Ukraine 8-0.

The biggest surprise was that Italy only

beat Israel and then Georgia by a single

goal. Also unexpected was Northern

Ireland’s last-minute equaliser to earn

a draw against Wales in Newport.

There will be 16 finalists, consisting

of nine group winners and the three

best runners-up, with the other runners-

up going into a play-off round. Hosts

England qualify automatically.

A record 47 nations entered the

qualifying competition, including

Cyprus and Kosovo for the first time.

The draw for the finals will be in

London on January 22, 2021 with the

tournament kicking off on July 11. The

Final, on August 1, will be at the 90,000-

seat Wembley with the other games

shared between eight venues whose

capacities range from 7,000 (Manchester

City’s academy stadium) to 32,702

(Sheffield United’s Bramall Lane).

Three further venues are 30,000-plus

(Southampton, Brighton and Milton

Keynes) but the other three are sub-

20,000 (Brentford’s new Lionel Road

stadium, Rotherham United and Leigh

Sports Village, where Manchester United

women play).

Capacities are a tricky issue and the

choice of stadia appears unambitious,

but no UEFA Women’s Championship has

ever averaged more than 10,000 and the

last finals, in Holland, while regarded as a

huge success, had an average of 7,969.

When the Euros were last staged in

England, in 2005, they were held

exclusively in the north-west. But while

the Lionesses drew 29,092 to the City

of Manchester Stadium and 25,694 to

Blackburn Rovers’ Ewood Park, outside

of the Final and England games the

average gate was less than 2,500.

Women’s football has grown

dramatically in England since then,

especially when it comes to interest in

the national team, and the Lionesses

drew a peak of 11million television

viewers during this year’s World Cup

finals. And although regular domestic

attendances remain small, the WSL

season began with some spectacular

gates at one-off matches at the Etihad

and Stamford Bridge.

As those matches underlined, “big

events” have a pulling power in the UK.

At the 2012 London Olympics, every

women’s football match drew at least

10,000 and the Wembley Final pulled

in 80,000-plus.

When it comes to promoting the

event, Carly Telford is confident it will

be done better than at the World Cup.

“The feedback from friends and

families was that it wasn’t well hosted,”

says the Lionesses goalkeeper. “A lot of

the towns and cities weren’t as kitted out

or football-friendly as they needed to be.

“Walking around the cities there was

no real guidance to where the stadiums

were, where the fan zones were. There

wasn’t much in the fan zones. It was like

a balloon that went up then deflated

quite quickly.

“I don’t know if we left a lot of a mark

in France in terms of having a World Cup

there. We fed it back to our guys. We

were like, ‘let’s not do this in 2021 – let’s

not be like France’. That’s no disrespect

• when you’re in a tournament it’s
  fantastic, it’s brilliant – but you’ve got
  to really make a big buzz about it.”
  The hosts’ on-pitch preparations had

Late show...Ashley

Hutton celebrates her

injury-time equaliser

for Northern Ireland

against Wales

One sided...

Montenegro

can’t stop Svenja

Huth of Germany

“I have a vision that nobody else has. I’ve got bravery

that no other coach has probably had”

England’s Phil Neville