The 2017 UEFA European Women's Championship, commonly referred to as UEFA Women's Euro 2017, was the 12th edition of the UEFA Women's Championship, the quadrennial international football championship organised by UEFA for the women's national teams of Europe. The competition was expanded to 16 teams (from 12 teams in the previous edition).[1]
The Netherlands was chosen to host the tournament by the UEFA Executive Committee on 4 December 2014.[2]
Germany's 22-year reign as champions of Europe was ended after losing 1–2 to Denmark in the quarter-finals.[3] It was only Germany's second loss in the tournament since 1993.[4] Another former winner, Norway, lost to both finalists, the Netherlands and Denmark, and ended without goals or points.
A total of 47 UEFA nations entered the competition (including Andorra which entered for the first time at senior women's level), and with the hosts Netherlands qualifying automatically, the other 46 teams competed in the qualifying competition to determine the remaining 15 spots in the final tournament.[2][8] The qualifying competition, which took place from April 2015 to October 2016, consisted of three rounds:[9]
Preliminary round: The eight lowest-ranked teams were drawn into two groups of four teams. Each group was played in single round-robin format at one of the pre-selected hosts. The two group winners advanced to the qualifying group stage.
Qualifying group stage: The 40 teams (38 highest-ranked teams and two preliminary round qualifiers) were drawn into eight groups of five teams. Each group was played in home-and-away round-robin format. The eight group winners and the six best runners-up (not counting results against the fifth-placed team) qualified directly for the final tournament, while the two remaining runners-up advanced to the play-offs.
Play-offs: The two teams played home-and-away two-legged matches to determine the last qualified team.
Qualified teams
The following 16 teams qualified for the final tournament. Five teams made their Women's Euro debuts. The only team that qualified in 2013 but did not qualify in 2017 was Finland.
The best six runners-up among all eight groups qualified for the final tournament.
Final draw
The final draw was held on 8 November 2016, 17:30 CET (UTC+1), at the Luxor Theatre in Rotterdam.[10][11] The 16 teams were drawn into four groups of four teams. The teams were seeded according to their coefficient ranking following the end of the qualifying group stage (excluding the play-offs),[12] with the hosts Netherlands assigned to position A1 in the draw. Each group contained one team from each of the four seeding pots.[13]
Each national team have to submit a squad of 23 players, three of whom must be goalkeepers. If a player is injured or ill severely enough to prevent her participation in the tournament before her team's first match, she can be replaced by another player. The squad list must be published no later than 10 days before the tournaments opening match.[9]
Group stage
Result of teams participating in UEFA Euro 2017
Winner
Runner-up
Semi-finals
Quarter-finals
Group stage
The schedule of the competition was announced on 23 September 2015.[15] The group winners and runners-up advance to the quarter-finals.
Teams are ranked according to points (3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 points for a loss), and if tied on points, the following tiebreaking criteria are applied, in the order given, to determine the rankings (Regulations Articles 19.01 and 19.02):[9]
Goals scored in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
If more than two teams are tied, and after applying all head-to-head criteria above, a subset of teams are still tied, all head-to-head criteria above are reapplied exclusively to this subset of teams;
Goal difference in all group matches;
Goals scored in all group matches;
Penalty shoot-out if only two teams have the tied after applying all criteria above, met in the last round of the group, and rankings are relevant for qualification for the next stage;
Disciplinary points (red card = 3 points, yellow card = 1 point, expulsion for two yellow cards in one match = 3 points);
^The Germany v Denmark match, originally scheduled on 29 July 2017, 20:45 CEST, was postponed to the following day due to adverse weather conditions.[18]
