IT WAS A hot topic of conversation in Ireland camp last week.
The favourites for Euro 2022.
“We honestly laid down so many teams,” Louise Quinn laughs. “The top two coming out of each group is ridiculously hard to pin down. I think there’s going to be a lot of surprises.”
The Girls In Green defender and Birmingham captain alongside her manager, Vera Pauw, and renowned coach and pundit, Lisa Fallon, were all of similar opinion when offering their picks to The42 at RTÉ’s coverage launch earlier this week.
Ireland’s Group A counterparts through 2023 World Cup qualifying, Sweden, the second-ranked team in the world behind USA, got a big mention from all three, while they agreed on several others contenders.
No one could whittle it down to just one, but here’s what they said.
Louise Quinn
“Obviously we’ve gone toe-to-toe with Sweden again, but I just think the quality that they bring… they know how to get a result out of a game, they know how to win a game, and they especially do that against the bigger and stronger nations. We saw the result that they had against Brazil [3-1 in a friendly on Tuesday night].
“I think someone who’s quietly kind of working in the background will be Norway. They’re just so solid all over the pitch, and obviously they’ve had such success in the past. I don’t really see a weak link in their squad, and they’ve such depth as well.
“Champions League finals, we see the Spanish teams and the French teams again. It’s about maybe the French mentality. The strength that they have in their squad will be absolutely pivotal, but they just seem to not get over that next step. Sometimes it seems like there’s a few little differences between the players and the coach as well, so that could be interesting to see how that develops along in the tournament.
“That was a very broad answer, and I don’t have a clear one for you. But it’s literally because the talent is ridiculous. I think it could be up to at least maybe six teams that can you can really put it down to.”
Lisa Fallon
“I’d agree with a lot of what Louise has said there. Sweden, you can never rule them out, but they are a maturing team. They’ve got a lot of older players now who are maybe just tipping the higher end of their experience. When you look at some of the energy and the physicality that some of the other teams will play with and at, I think it will be very interesting to see how Sweden fare in this.
“I don’t think you can rule England out. Under Sarina Wiegman, England are going to be a really serious entity. I think she’s brought a really interesting dimension and she’s ignited something in the players, and in that squad. The home advantage – and that’s something that Sarina knows well from her time in 2017 when the Netherlands won it on home soil… England are definitely going to be a very genuine contender. It’s really a question of how can they deal with the pressure of being the home nation and obviously, the further the progress in the tournament, the media, they will have an awful lot of pressure to deal with that they’ve probably never experienced as a team before.
“I think Spain could be really interesting, because of the the number of players from Barcelona. Barcelona have just evolved emphatically in the last four years to being such a dominant team on the European stage. And obviously, they’ll have some Real Madrid players as well, but the likes of Alexia Putellas, she is a star player.
“Germany, you can never really rule them out, and France, obviously, will be very interesting. I think it’s disappointing for everyone that we won’t see Amandine Henry. She was the Player of the Match in the Women’s Champions League final, she is a stunning player and it’s a shame that she won’t be there. But obviously, Louise has alluded to some of the difficulties and challenges that certainly France had in 2019. And they haven’t dissipated, those challenges for them as a group are still there.
“But for me, Norway, I’m so interested to see how they do. The Ada Hegerberg factor with them is going to be a whole new dimension. She was stunning, the impact she had on the Lyon team in the Women’s Champions League final, both on the ball and off the ball, the leadership, the way she influences the players and what happens on the pitch. She is a really interesting dynamic. And obviously she wasn’t in the Norway team in 2019, so the fact that they have her now… I think she scored a hattrick in her first game back for them against Kosovo in April. She is going to add a whole new dimension to this Norway team which, as Louise rightly says, has just got so much quality. Guro Reiten, I’ve coached her Chelsea, she has come into unbelievable form in the latter part of the season. You have the likes of Caroline Graham Hansen as well in that team.
“I have a little inkling for Norway, just based on the quality and the Ada Hegerberg factor. But I agree with everybody, I think this is going to be an absolutely fascinating tournament. It’s going to be a really difficult one to call, but the team that wins it will absolutely deserve to because they will have to work so hard to win this tournament.”
Vera Pauw
“Do I need to add something much greater to that analysis, there’s not much to add, it’s fantastic,” the Irish boss smiles. “The only thing I would like to add is England is the home nation. They have five more rest days than the teams in the last group. So that will have a huge influence in a positive way for England and that group.
“I’m very curious of Spain; how they do without the foreign stars that they have in their [club] teams in the Champions League and how they cope looking at their recent results. It looked like they found a way, so very curious if they can make the last step. And France, you always expect something and it always ends too early for them. Maybe they can make the big step now.
“And Sweden, they always start fantastically, you always think that they are going to win the tournament, but then at the late stages somehow, they can’t make it — whether that’s that they’re not recovered or whether it is that their league is so intense, and that they start to tournament tired. The only moment that they really went to the edges was in 2003 when the tournament was in October. I’m very curious if Sweden can keep on having your level throughout the tournament. And they are also one of the big favourites.”
Euro 2022 runs from from 8-31 July, with all 31 games live on RTÉ.
