Major football, or soccer, tournaments often occur every four years. Ignoring the Olympic Games, the major regional and global tournaments generally do not occur in the same year. Under normal circumstances, the UEFA European Football Championship for men takes place in the same year as the Olympic Games. As with most other events and tournaments, the Covid-19 pandemic caused change to the football tournaments schedule, as the Olympic Games 2020 was postponed until 2021, and the UEFA European Football Championship for men was too. Originally, the championship for women was scheduled to take place in July of 2021, but this had to be postponed due to the pandemic as well, despite the Olympic Games and the tournament for men taking place in the summer of 2021.
General Criticism: Women’s Tournament Perceived with Less Value than the Equivalent for Men?
Unsurprisingly, the decision to move the tournament for women was met with some criticism at the time, as some were critical that it was seemingly so easy to move the tournament for women to make place for the tournament for men. Furthermore, some asked whether it really would have been impossible to have both European championships in the same year. Related to this criticism, some have also asked if it is necessary to specify that the Euro 2022, with the full official name 2022 UEFA European Women’s Football Championship, is played by women. No such thing is done for the tournaments for men, so why is it necessary to do so for the tournaments for women?
It is no secret that the tournaments for women have overall been less popular and treated as having less value than the equivalent tournaments for men. Recently, the “football for women”, to fall into the same problematic language as is widespread accepted for now, has become increasingly popular, and there is increased focus on making football more equal regardless of who is playing the matches.
Host, Venues, and Format
Major sports tournaments often involve a bidding process where multiple countries are interested in hosting. However, this was not the case with the tournament originally scheduled for 2021. Only England submitted their bid before the deadline, and England was confirmed as the hosts in 2018.
Ten venues were used to host the Euro 2022, and the capacity of these greatly varied. The biggest venue was Wembley Stadium in London which has a capacity of 90,000 spectators, while the venue with the lowest capacity was Etihad Academy Stadium located in Bradford, Manchester, with a capacity of only 4,700 due to restrictions, without the restrictions the stadium would have had a capacity of only 7,000. The stadiums selected to host the Euro 2022 were criticised for limited capacity and limited geographical spread.
There were a total of 16 countries who qualified for the Euro 2022, including the host nation, England. Originally, Russia had qualified to participate in the Euros, but following the suspension of Russia in international sports as a reaction to the invasion of Ukraine, Portugal received Russia’s spot in the championship. The 16 teams were divided into four groups (A, B, C, D) in the group stage of the tournament, and the two teams with the poorest record from each group were eliminated before the knockout stage.
In the knockout stage of the tournament, the winner of each group met the runner up from another group. England won group A, Germany won group B, Sweden won group C, and France won group D. The runner-ups were Austria in A, Spain in B, the Netherlands in C, and Belgium in D.
In the quarterfinals, England won the match against Spain after extra time, Sweden beat Belgium, Germany defeated Austria, and the defending champions the Netherlands lost against France after extra time. In the semifinals, England played Sweden and Germany played France.
The Euro 2022 Champions
In the final match of the tournament, England played Germany. At the end of the 90 minutes plus the inevitable minutes added by the end, the match was tied. Thus, the championship would either be decided in extra time, which is two periods of 15 minutes each adding up to 120 minutes in total plus additional time added, or with penalties.
Ultimately, the hosts won the championship 2-1 after the two shorter extra periods. This marked the first time ever that the English national team for women, nicknamed the Lionesses, has won any championship. Additionally, it is the first time since 1966 that the English national football team won a championship. For decades, the English have hoped that “it” would be coming home, and “it” has been any kind of championship, really just any trophy, in football. The men came close bringing “it” home last summer, and this time the women finally managed to do it. It remains to see whether the passionate English football fans will treat the Euro 2022 champions as those who finally brought it home, or if the fans value the men too much to appreciate the feat of their women.
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