On July 6th, the biggest football tournament of the summer got underway, with hosts England kicking off the 2022 UEFA Women’s Euros against Austria at Old Trafford. The tournament sees 16 of the best national teams in Europe compete for a place at Wembley Stadium on July 31st.
While they’re certainly in contention with the frontrunners, England enters their own tournament a fair bit shy of donning the tag of favorites. In their place, a team is drawn from Pot 2, but even they have their doubters. Given how close the running looks to be, the presence of a near-consensus dark horse also doesn’t come as a surprise.
Oddsmakers favor La Roja
The hosts usually get a slight bit of favor in the odds, especially if they’re among the best teams in the competition, which England is. Yet, despite ranking behind the Netherlands, Germany, England, and France at the time of the Group Stage draw, it’s Spain who https://www.paddypower.com/football rank as the favorites at +250.
This puts England, the higher-ranking hosts, at +400, followed by the Dutch at +500 and the French at +500. Spain has been dealt a tough hand for Group B, though, needing to face Germany, Denmark, and Finland at the Brentford Community Stadium and Stadium MK. Then again, if Spain emerge victorious from this trial by fire, they’d be primed to take on any other team in their way.
Reporters piling on Scandinavians
Amongst the 16 reporters from the represented nations at UEFA Women’s Euro 2022 assembled for https://www.uefa.com/womenseuro/news, there was a clear frontrunner who wasn’t Spain or England. Instead, six of the 16 reporters staked their chips on Sweden, with four giving the nod to Spain. That said, nine of the reporters penciled Alexia Putellas of Spain to be named the Player of the Tournament.
Behind Sweden and Spain, the other six votes were split between England and France. So, evidently, there’s at least a favorite from each group among these experts. Should England win Group A, Spain win Group B, Sweden wins Group C, and France win Group D, none of them could meet until the semi-finals on 26 and 27 July at Bramall Lane and Stadium MK.
Between the two batches of predictors, we have Spain and Sweden as the leading tips to win the tournament at +250 and +500, respectively. Perhaps more interestingly, there’s a lot of love being given to a certain another Scandinavian team as a potential dark horse. Out at +2000, Norway got four of five dark horse predictions from https://uk.sports.yahoo.com/news/women-euro-2022-team-guide, with some tentative side picks for Italy and Denmark.
The history of the tournament has seen its fair share of hosts raise the trophy, with Norway in 1987, West Germany in 1989, Germany again in 2001, and the Netherlands in 2017 all winning on home soil. However, Germany’s absurd sweep of six tournament wins from 1995 to 2013 dismantled any real scope for home nation advantage in the statistics.
Still, the Lionesses are being given a puncher’s chance among a core batch of favorites by most outlets and expert collectives. Spain and Sweden may be the safer picks, but England’s still very much in the mix.
