MANCHESTER, England – Hosts England were drawn alongside Norway, Austria and Northern Ireland for the group stage of the Women’s Euro 2022 tournament, while holders the Netherlands were paired with Olympic silver medallists Sweden following the draw.
The tournament, originally scheduled for 2021, was pushed back a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic and will run from July 6-31, with London’s Wembley Stadium set to stage the final.
Sarina Wiegman’s England side will play Austria in Group A in the opening game at Old Trafford followed by Norway on July 11 and debutants Northern Ireland four days later.
Eight-times winners Germany face a tricky run of games against Denmark, Spain and Finland in Group B, while Netherlands and Sweden will be joined by Russia and Switzerland in Group C.
Group D is made up of France, Italy, Belgium and Iceland.
The top two teams from each group will qualify for the quarter-finals.
All three of Northern Ireland’s group games are to be at St Mary’s, with them playing Norway and Austria on July 7 and 11 respectively.
Speaking at Thursday’s draw ceremony in Manchester, England boss Sarina Wiegman urged fans to get tickets for the opener against Austria, saying: “It is going to be massive.
“When the crowd is there they are going to be our 12th woman. We just want to connect with the fans and let them help us create a great performance.”
On the prospect of the Northern Ireland match, Wiegman said: “It’s so nice – I hope it is going to be sold out at Southampton.
“It’s an amazing stadium. It’s nice for everyone. We want to do well, we want to have our fans, but it will be really good to have Northern Ireland’s fans too, just for the women’s game.”
England, Northern Ireland and Austria are currently in the same World Cup qualifying group – England beat Kenny Shiels’ Northern Ireland 4-0 at Wembley last week.
Shiels’ team then drew 2-2 with Austria in Belfast on Tuesday. They qualified for a first major tournament finals in their history with a play-off triumph over Ukraine in April.
Shiels said: “Obviously the draw for us is going to be difficult.
“The happiest people here are English, Norwegian and Austrian – they’ve got us. When it came out the English people were all cheering, ‘we’ve got Northern Ireland’, an easy match for them.
“But we’ve got to segregate the three games and try to do our best in the first game, and then think about the second one, and then think about the third.”
He added: “No matter who we meet, at the upper echelons of European football, we’re going to be up against it. But we know that, and we’ll go in there and give our best shot.”
England, Euros runners-up in 1984 and 2009, has been beaten semi-finalists in each of their last three major tournaments.
