Key events
Here’s Tom’s report, live from Lausanne.
England’s – and everyone else’s fixtures – will be confirmed in due course this evening.
Tom Garry
The smell of fondue wafting into the mixed zone right now is even stronger than the calibre of teams in Group D. Some VIPs (not us, alas) are in for a pungent meal, clearly.
The initial, informal chat amongst media personnel backstage is that England will do very well to progress from the group.
According to England and Wales will play each other in their group-stage finale on 13 July at Arena St. Gallen.
Tom Garry
With England in Group D, we can say that their group-stage fixtures will be staged in either Zurich, Lucerne, St Gallen or Basel, so they’ll be in the north and north east of the country. The exact schedule will be announced tonight. Their opening game against France, on Saturday 5th July, will be played in either Zurich or Lucerne.
Tom Garry
That’s a brutal draw for Wales, compared to what they could have had. Switzerland have had an absolute blinder. There were gasps around the media room when everyone realised the Netherlands were going into the same group as France and England. Tasty.
That looks a tough draw for England. Sarina Wiegman has quite a job on there.
Full Euro 2025 draw
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Group A Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, Finland
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Group B: Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Italy
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Group C: Germany, Poland, Denmark, Sweden
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Group D: France, England, Wales, Netherlands
Wales pull England
It’s a Nordic Group A, with Finland coming out in A4. Portugal make it Iberian by coming up as B2. Poland join Group C in their first finals. And, of, course, Wales go into Group D, and that concludes. “Geographical clusters,” as Nadine says.
Norway are in Group A, and in position 2. Belgium land Group B3. Sweden into Group C4, which leaves Netherlands with France and England in position D4. Sarina Wiegman meets her old team.
England land Group D
Some gags about how long it takes to pull out the teams. Italy are in Group B, and in position 4. Denmark come out in Group C, and in position 3. Leonardo completes with England, who land in Group D2.
Here comes Leonardo Bonucci:
Iceland join Switzerland in Group A, and will be position 3
The top seeds are out
B1: Spain, the World Cup winners, looking for their first title.
C1: Germany, eight-time winners.
D1: France: semi-finalists in 2022
The draw is upon us…Lara will kick us off. Switzerland start in A1.
It’s SHOWTIME: the draw expert is here, Giorgio Marchetti, accompanied by Nadine Kessler. Giorgio, John Curtice with a more empathetic barber, performs the function Don Gianni Infantino used to love, and doing the sarcasm, riffing off Nadine, the old card.
Here come the guests, the seven legends to join Lara in drawing those warm balls.
Ian Wright, double-breasted like Captain Haddock, announces first Raphael Varane.
Next up: Leonard Bonucci, Veronica Boquete Caroline Seger, Xherdan Shaqiri (of course) , Sami Khedira and….Jill Scott…who brings on the trophy.
Now, a quick video segue through the teams, some Euro bum rhythm music the accompaniment. But of course.
We’re now seeing the mascot…Maddli, a Saint Bernard puppy, named after Madeleine Boll, the first ever female licensed footballer in Switzerland.
Ian Wright is loving this.
The women presenter is Annette Fetscherin, from Zurich. The tournament ambassador Lara Dickenmann is announced to the crowd. She won the Champions League with Lyon.
Tom Garry
“The fairly reliably-sourced rumour doing the rounds here is that the first ball will be drawn shortly before 6.30pm local time (5.30 UK) so you’re all safe to make yourself a brew…”
The co-host is Ian Wright Wright Wright, an experienced TV host for those who recall his Channel 5 days. We are given a spotted guide to the rather glorious country of Switzerland. Each host city is given a runout.
We are go in Switzerland and some local talent are performing their welcome to Switzerland. Swiss hip hop, with a touch of Eurovision thrown in. They’re rapping in Swiss French rather than Schweizerdeutsch or Swiss Italian. As ever, the crowd is full of immobile suits unwilling to respond to the call and response from the rapper Stress, who is actually from Estonia.
“I don’t feel any pressure about this draw,” says Jill Scott, Euro 2022 winner and Overlapper. Lot of confidence among the English. We never change.
Tom Garry
The geeky stat that I’m rather proud of is that no team has ever won the Women’s Euros after being drawn outside of Group A or Group B, and 2009 (England) was the only time that any team from Group C or D has reached the final.
There are some caveats to that, not least that this competition didn’t have more than eight teams until 2009 and only expanded to 16 teams as recently 2017. However, there is a science behind it too. Being in groups A or B means you have more rest in between matches and more time to recover for the knockout fixtures. Group A’s winners generally tend to have the kindest knockout pathway too. If you want the best route to Basel, you want to be in Groups A or B.
Wales will be in the bottom pot, as they get ready for their first ever finals.
Tom Garry
Chatting to media colleagues from other countries around Europe here at the SwissTech Convention Centre in Lausanne, there is one team they are all hoping to avoid: England. And it’s not hard to understand why they’d be keen to steer clear of the holders, when teams are picked from Pot 2. Uefa’s decision to seed the draw pots based on performances in the Nations League, rather than by world rankings, has made Pot 3 arguably a lot stronger than Pot 2, where England – ranked fourth in the world – are joined by the teams ranked 12th, 13th and 14th in the world in Denmark, Italy and Iceland respectively. The Lionesses were comfortable 5-1 winners over the Italians in February, to illustrate the variation in strength in that Pot. The odds are, whichever group England are in will probably be the ‘group of death’.
Key dates
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Group stage matchday one: 2-5 July
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Group stage matchday two: 6-9 July
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Group stage matchday three: 10-13 July
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Quarter-finals: 16-19 July
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Semi-finals: 22-23 July
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Final: 27 July
The defending champions will look very different from being winning hosts in 2022.
A reminder of how the play-offs were won.
The venues, with the final, on 27 July being played in Basel.
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St Jakob-Park, Basel
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Stadion Wankdorf, Bern
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Stade de Geneve, Geneva
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Stadion Letzigrund, Zurich
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Arena St Gallen, St Gallen
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Allmend Stadion Luzern, Lucerne
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Arena Thun, Thun
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Stade de Tourbillon, Sion
Preamble
England will be there to defend their crown but Spain, the world champions, will lead the challengers. Wales will be there, too. Here’s those all-important pots. It suggests the English could get a tough draw. It all kicks off on 2 July 2025.
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Pot 1: Spain, Germany, France, Switzerland (hosts go into Group A)
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Pot 2: Italy, Iceland, Denmark, England
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Pot 3: Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Belgium
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Pot 4: Finland, Poland, Portugal, Wales
The draw takes place at 5pm UK time, join me.
