Latest news with #Euros2024
The Sun
4 days ago
- Sport
- The Sun
England vs Netherlands live stream: How to watch Under-21 Euros semi-final for FREE
ENGLAND U21 continue their defence of the Euros title TONIGHT against the Netherlands in a mouthwatering semi-final! Lee Carsley's side aim to retain the title they won in 2023 in Slovakia. 3 3 3 A disappointing group stage saw them finish behind Germany, but the young Three Lions saw off Spain convincingly in the quarter-final. Jay Stansfield's late penalty was the nail in the Spanish coffin, with tempers boiling over after the final whistle. The two sides meet in a repeat of the Euro 2024 semi-final between the senior sides, with England U21's hoping for a repeat of Ollie Watkins heroics in Bratislava. SunSport can reveal how to watch England U21's semi-final clash for FREE. How to watch England U21 vs Netherlands U21 for FREE England U21 take on Netherlands U21 in the Euros semi-final TONIGHT - Wednesday, June 25 It is scheduled to get underway at 5pm BST. The clash will be available for FREE on Channel 4 in the UK. Action will also be available to stream on
Forbes
4 days ago
- Sport
- Forbes
2025 Women's Euros Group A Preview: Hosts Switzerland Face Nordic Opposition
Switzerland is set to host its first major women's football tournament with this summer's Euros. The 14th edition of the UEFA Women's Euro is set to kick off in Switzerland on July 2. The hosts will compete in Group A, which looks tough to call from the get-go. 🇨🇭 Switzerland Current FIFA Ranking: #23 Euro History: 2 previous appearances; best result: group stage (2017 and 2022) Major International Trophies: N/A Switzerland are in the curious position of having reached the knockouts of the FIFA Women's World Cup in both of their appearances at the tournament, but never having made it past the group stage at the Euros. Their status as a pot 1 team should theoretically give them a good chance of changing that this time around, but their group looks anything but straightforward. Legendary Swedish head coach Pia Sundhage took on Swiss national team job in 2024, aiming to set the team up for a strong home Euros campaign. She got off to quite a good start, but her side could not sustain that momentum and will head into this tournament on an eight-match winless streak, which include all six of their group matches from the latest UEFA Women's Nations League. In truth, the Swiss squad is far from the strongest in their group, let alone the Euros. They are not helped by the fact that they seem to be in the middle of a generational shift, as five of their starters in their last match were aged 23 or younger, while all but two others were 28 or older. Sundhage's back five setups in the Nations League suggested that she aims to make her team as tough to break down as possible and hope to get some joy on the break, but that could be a tough ask given their lack of serious firepower up front. Sydney Schertenleib may be the youngest player in the Swiss squad, but she could well also be their most important figure. While more experienced figures will be tasked with keeping things tight in midfield and defense, the Barcelona starlet may have to make something out of nothing going forward. Despite her young age, Sydney Schertenleib stands out on the field thanks to her height and yet is ... More extremely elegant on the ball. (Photo by Sathire Kelpa/Eurasia) The 18-year-old forward looks a very promising prospect, having regularly featured for a star-studded Barcelona side in the latter part of the 2024/25 season. She also seems to have the trust of her national team head coach as she started all six recent Nations League games. Schertenleib's on-ball ability might just lead to an unforgettable moment or two at the Euros. While Switzerland will surely like to make their Euros knockout debut on home soil, home advantage might not prove enough to get the better of the likes of Norway and Iceland in this group. 🇳🇴 Norway Current FIFA Ranking: #16 Euro History: 12 previous appearances; best result: Champions (1987 and 1993) Other major International Trophies: FIFA Women's World Cup (1995) and Olympic gold medal (2000) Despite being one of the most successful teams in Europe historically, Norway have always flattered to deceive of late. They have not reached a major final for over a decade now and have not won the European crown in over 30 years, thus dropping to their lowest-ever FIFA ranking. Norway still have some of the world's very best players, so their only challenge is to put everything together nicely. Gemma Grainger has been given that task since 2024, but has not gotten everything to click so far. The two-time champions needed to go through the play-offs to qualify for these Euros, and they only won two of their six Nations League games earlier this year. The Welsh head coach has a wealth of attacking talent to work with but has yet to find a winning combination, so she may well continue tweaking some things through the Euros. She looks set on using a back four formation, but most things beyond that could still be up in the air. Being the current Ballon d'Or runner-up, Caroline Graham Hansen might be under even more pressure to deliver than usual in this tournament. She could 'only' register 30 goal involvements for her club side last season, marking a significant drop from a stellar 32-goal and 28-assist 2023/24 campaign. Evidently, the Barcelona winger is quite a handful even when she is not at her best. Caroline Graham Hansen's sharp changes of direction make her a nightmare to defend against. (Photo ... More by Marcio Machado/Eurasia) Hansen generally likes to play out wide on the right wing, but she has been asked to do a job in a more central role for her national team at times. So, it will be interesting to see whether Grainger asks her to adapt to her fellow attackers or sets the side up to get the best out of the Barcelona star. Despite their inconsistent recent form and subpar major tournament track record over the last few years, Norway will aim to reach the knockouts at a minimum. Having finished ahead of both Switzerland and Iceland in their latest Nations League group, they should be backed to top this group. 🇮🇸 Iceland Current FIFA Ranking: #14 Euro History: 4 appearances; best result: quarterfinalists (2013) Major International Trophies: N/A Perhaps surprisingly, Iceland are the highest-ranked nation in Group A. So, they must surely aim to significantly improve their record of one win in 12 matches at the Euros proper. Iceland head into the Euros on a nine-match winless streak, but their form is not as big of a concern as it might seem. They have faced some quite tough opposition in the last few months and managed to hold their own, suffering respectable defeats in two friendlies against the United States and putting up two tough fights against France as well as drawing against group-mates Switzerland and Norway in the recent Nations League campaign. Thorsteinn Halldórsson's side can often be quite tough to break down defensively, so their attacking performances could well determine their success in this tournament. Sveindís Jane Jónsdóttir is approaching the age where she is expected to go from being a promising talent to now becoming a reliable key player for her teams, and there will be few better stages for her to do that than the Euros. The 24-year-old forward can pose a serious threat in transition both through her runs in behind and ball carrying, and she also has an absolute rocket of a long throw up her locker which Iceland will surely utilize. Despite their high ranking, Iceland are perhaps slightly underrated going into this tournament. They have the potential to frustrate stronger sides in the knockouts, so as long as they avoid stumbling in the group stage, they might turn out to be a surprise package this summer. 🇫🇮 Finland Current FIFA Ranking: #26 Euro History: 4 appearances; best result: semifinalists (2005) Major International Trophies: N/A Finland got the better of Scotland in the Euro qualifying playoffs to qualify for the tournament. Now, they will aim to register their first win in well over a decade and a half on the continent's biggest stage. Finland played in League B of the Nations League earlier this year, so they came up against relatively weaker opposition. They finished second behind Serbia in their group, with other mixed results including a comfortable win over Hungary and a goalless draw against Belarus. Those matches should not inform much of what they will do at the Euros, as they tend to switch tactics to try and become more defensively solid against stronger opposition. They shipped four goals to the likes of Norway and Italy last year despite making such tweaks, so they will have to step up their defensive organisation if they are to do well at this tournament. Tall center back Eva Nyström will be a key presence in Finland's back line both with and without the ball. She will have to show the best of her anticipation and reading of the game to clean things up at the back, while her height and aerial presence will also prove critical. The West Ham defender can be quite a good distributor given some time and space on the ball, so she will have a role to play in launching her team's attacks too. Qualifying for the Euros ahead of the higher-ranked Scotland already was a success for Finland, so going anywhere beyond that would be a huge surprise.
Daily Mail
22-06-2025
- Sport
- Daily Mail
Jay Stansfield's energy sparks England's Under-21 Euros bid to life as £15m striker steps out of the shadows with tireless display against Spain, writes NATHAN SALT
Jay Stansfield isn't much of a talker. A quiet, unassuming character, it was easy for the 22-year-old to blend into the background in the early stages of this tournament. That's been a place that's been hard for Stansfield to find at club level, what with a £15million move to Birmingham City making him the most expensive League One player ever. Jeered by opposing fans at every ground and labelled a 'waste of money' at every missed chance, going away with England has proved quite the departure. Stansfield touched down in Slovakia with just three England Under-21 caps to his name, his most recent in March 2024, and observers of Lee Carsley 's group noted how it took him a day or two to bring himself up to speed. That's not a knock on Stansfield either. Of all the outfield players in this squad it is Stansfield that was playing at the lowest-ranked level last season in League One. Here he quickly found himself in high-intensity training sessions with Champions League pedigree talent. But after thriving in the spotlight in his first start of the tournament, Stansfield's days in the background look to be numbered. Now he stands firmly centre stage in England's bid to win back-to-back Euros. This is Stansfield's first tournament for England and at 22 he knows there are no guarantees he will get another one. So to see him empty the tank across 81 minutes against Spain, an energiser bunny that was a complete pest all evening for the Spanish, was to see a player that has been waiting for his chance to make a point. Mail Sport can reveal that Stansfield covered 10.1 kilometres in Trnava, 1.2km of which was at 'high intensity'. Stansfield also recorded 194 intensive actions - determined as accelerations and decelerations - which was the most of any player in an England shirt on the night. His high intensity running was also a team high. Having been patient for his chance, Carsley got every last drop out of Stansfield. 'Jay was outstanding and more than deserved his opportunity,' Carsley said. 'Jay's a very, very unselfish striker, the way that he presses, the way that he puts defenders under pressure. 'You want him to have that much energy though when he's in front of goal because he can't do all the other side of the game and not get the rewards. But I thought he was outstanding.' Stansfield is understated, rarely one to hype up his own performances and that job once again fell on team-mates who were seen lauding him on the pitch and near the team bus after Saturday night's 3-1 win. 'He made everyone around him a better player,' Channel 4 pundit Joe Cole mused afterwards. Nobody in England's dressing room disagreed. There are Jamie Vardy-like tendencies to the way Stansfield presses like a man possessed at times and that has been a trait that England lacked in a group stage where they struggled to find any sort of rhythm in attack. No Liam Delap complicated things for Carsley. Operating two false nines in a 4-2-2-2 system was the decision he made and Marseille's Jonathan Rowe, who looks much more comfortable playing wide on the left, got the three group stage starts up top, all without a goal. Stansfield waited for his chance, coming on late in the 3-1 win over Czech Republic and in the 0-0 draw with Slovenia. He got a half to show what he was about in the 2-1 loss to Germany but found it tough. But the message being passed on during England training sessions has long been that big moments will arrive for every player and in his 50th appearance of the season for club and country, Stansfield answered the call just as Carsley knew he would. 'He's had a good season at Birmingham and one of the big things for me that's most impressive is the pressure he has had to deal with,' Carsley told Mail Sport. 'They paid a lot of money for him, got that promotion under his belt, scored a lot of goals so I think him bringing that to this squad is a big thing for us.' He answered the call against Spain and now a date with the Dutch awaits in Wednesday's semi-final.
BBC News
11-06-2025
- Sport
- BBC News
Record scorer Hermoso left out of Spain Euro 2025 squad
Spain record goalscorer Jenni Hermoso has been left out of their squad for the upcoming European Championships in Switzerland. Hermoso, 35, has scored 57 goals in 123 appearances for her national side and played a key role as Spain lifted the World Cup in Australia in Tigres striker featured in all six qualifiers, but her last appearance was in October 2024. She is among 12 changes to the World Cup-winning receiving her World Cup winners medal, Hermoso was kissed by Spain's former football federation boss Luis Rubiales without her consent. Rubiales was. later found guilty of sexual coach Montse Tome gave a reason for her omission, saying: "I understand Jenni is an important player. I spoke with her about her situation and we've done the same work with her as everyone else."We have assessed her performances for Tigres and spoken with her coach. In her position, we have Patri [Guijarro], Aitana [Bonmati], Alexia [Putellas], Maite [Zubieta], Vicky [Lopez] and even Mariona [Caldentey] or [Claudia] Pina can come in there."It's hard to pick 23 players, but we do the job professionally. At the end of the day that is what we have chosen."Mariona Caldentey, who started in Arsenal's Champions League final win over Barcelona, and Manchester City's Leila Ouahabi have been included in the squad alongside two-time Ballon d'Or winners Alexia Putellas and Aitana Euros gets under way on 2 July, with Spain taking on Portugal in group B the following day.
Daily Mail
08-06-2025
- Sport
- Daily Mail
We should be excited about England a year out from the World Cup... instead Thomas Tuchel's team are dispiriting, lame and dull, writes IAN LADYMAN
A journey home from Barcelona was accompanied by a nagging question. When was the last time the England team played consistently well? That may seem a strange thought to have about a side ranked fourth in the world, a team that has lost narrowly in the finals of the last two European Championships. Nevertheless, it's pertinent. Three games under the national team's new head coach Thomas Tuchel have seen Latvia, Albania and now Andorra beaten. In terms of pattern and style and conviction, there have been as many questions left as answers. Tuchel deserves patience and will hopefully get some. But the wider worry is that England have been trending backwards – or at the very most flatlining – for quite a while now. We know what happened at last summer's Euros. On performances alone, England would have been home within a fortnight. They were lucky. The following experiment – if that's what it was – with Lee Carsley offered some hope and some early freshness. There was a bold opening 25 minutes against the Republic in Ireland. But over time, it all grew more difficult. England lost at home to Greece and were no more than satisfactory in Nations League tier two from that point on. Carsley's final game before handing over to Tuchel ended with a 5-0 defeat of the Republic but those of us who were at Wembley know what we saw, namely an England team struggling lamely until a sending off offered them a penalty, the lead and a one-man advantage early in the second half. So back we go, perhaps, to 2023 and home and away wins over Italy in Euro 2024 qualifying. Maybe that's the last time we saw the light, the last time we saw an England team play with the purpose and devilment that we expect. Before that was a productive World Cup in Qatar – England could well have beaten France in that quarter-final – and the conclusion we reach from all of this reflection and analysis is that it's all been far too long. For the truth of the matter is that this is an England team in grave danger of getting stuck in treading water mode, a group of players struggling to impose their undoubted qualities on modest opposition just a year out from a World Cup in America that continues to feel ever more daunting the closer it gets. England's efforts against Andorra in Spain on Saturday were lame, for sure. Has there even been a more dispiriting watch? Perhaps there has but Andorra are ranked 173rd in the world – just ahead of Nepal – and as such what Tuchel's players gave him in the sparse surroundings of the largely empty …… Stadium was wholly unacceptable. Stronger words are available without risk of contradiction. Tuchel was asked afterwards if he had taken a risk in being so critical of his players in his post-match analysis. It was a fair point – such candour is becoming a theme of the Tuchel tenure after just three games – but his reply equally hard to counter. 'What else do you expect me to say?' he asked rhetorically. More broadly, it is clear that Tuchel is already developing very real expectations of how he expects this England team to play. He has clearly worked it out already. Playing 4-4-2 next summer is already in his head while he has mused about the importance of set pieces and throw-ins. Very quickly the outlook is becoming pragmatic rather than ambitious as the former Chelsea manager walks headlong into the same problems that plagued his predecessor Gareth Southgate. No natural number 6, reservations about Trent Alexander-Arnold's defending, no senior left-back and no real alternative to Harry Kane as the England captain and centre forward continues to slow down. Add to that the fact that a central defensive pairing that served England well for some time has fallen apart on the back of waning form and fitness and Tuchel's problems are clear. The manager has hopes of a return to prominence for John Stones – he hasn't ruled out the Manchester City man playing in midfield – but is less optimistic about Harry Maguire. We shall see. Certainly, England's relegation from the top tier of the Nations League has hurt Tuchel's team more than we perhaps thought when Southgate's version endured that miserable campaign against Italy, Hungary and Germany in the run up to the Qatar World Cup in 2022. Spain and Portugal were due to tussle for the Nations League title in Munich last night but that's not the issue. No, it's the fact that England have been deprived of the chance to play top opposition over the course of the last season that matters. While Carsley's England were banging their heads against the low blocks of unambitious opponents in Dublin, Helsinki and Athens last autumn and winter, the rest of European football's elite nations were facing each other in games of real substance. How damaging this will be for England in the long run remains to be seen but the danger is clear. With the greatest of respect to World Cup qualifying opponents Serbia – ranked at 31 in the world – England will reach America next summer having not played a seriously top level opponent in competitive play since losing to Spain in last year's Euros final. It will have been 23 months, then, since England were able to engage in a proper toe to toe football match. This is Tuchel's problem to solve and it's significant. The 51-year-old needs to bring this group of players to the boil next summer while at the moment he is struggling even to get them to simmer. It really is difficult to do that at the end of a long and tiring domestic season against opponents who start every game seeking merely to limit damage. Senegal at the City Ground on Tuesday should be more engaging than what we sat through on Saturday, even though it's a friendly fixture. The City Ground has not hosted an international since the 1996 European Championship and so the stadium will be full and the crowd hungry. The very least they should expect is a team that mirrors that. To hear Tuchel question attitude late on Saturday night was as alarming as had been his team's football. This England team has a few high rollers in but that doesn't mean these players have nothing to prove because they do. They are still to win anything. Selection for the game will be interesting. Giving Ivan Toney a run up front felt like a no-brainer until Tuchel refused to talk about him on Saturday. Three times the manager was asked to discuss the Saudi-based forward and three times he refused, choosing instead to extol the virtues of Kane as one of the few to have passed muster against Andorra. This may mean something and it may not. If Toney doesn't start on Tuesday, however, then we will have our answer. Tuchel likes to talk straight and as such some early frustrations are clear. He certainly should have started the job earlier. He and the FA have never really explained the delay. But that chance has gone now and the fact is that somebody must light a fire beneath this England team before it's too late. As ever in football, the spark is going to have to come from within the dressing room. WINNERS HARRY KANE Goal number 72 for the England captain and one of the few who kept going until the end. An example in terms of attitude if nothing else. REECE JAMES Super pass in the first half for Noni Madueke to run on to. That should have led to the first goal. Good to see a gifted player back after injury. NONI MADUEKE Played well when given a run in Athens against Greece under Lee Carsley and was progressive again here. Now he needs to do it against much better opponents. LOSERS COLE PALMER Thomas Tuchel loves the Chelsea man and he should be a player the German can build a team around. But his fallow spell of form goes on. CURTIS JONES Asked to play the Trent Alexander-Arnold role while the man himself sat on the bench. A square peg placed needlessly in a round hole. Not his fault. JORDAN HENDERSON
