Perhaps one of the most impactful European Championships drew to a close on Sunday night, with England lifting their first major footballing trophy in 66 years in front of a record-breaking crowd at Wembley Stadium.
The significance of this result, not just on a sporting level but more importantly on a societal level, simply cannot be overstated.
The rest of the tournament was quite fun too, and we will be reviewing it in this piece with the help of lots of data.
Group Stage
The tournament started off strong with a group stage that really set the pace from the get-go, as the quality of football and level of drama was high from the very first matchday.
Hosts England were in Group A, and they absolutely tore through the competition, scoring 14 goals in their three matches without reply.
The big result in the group came on the second matchday when Norway found themselves at the end of a historic thrashing. The phrase ‘one-way traffic’ will never be used more aptly in the context of a football match.
Norway’s qualification hopes were not dashed despite this massive defeat as they simply needed to beat Austria on the final matchday to finish second, but with their confidence shattered, they delivered a very disappointing performance and ultimately lost the game.
The other finalists Germany were in Group B, and they too progressed with a perfect record of three wins and three clean sheets.
While they did not completely obliterate their biggest rivals Spain on the second matchday, they did come away with a 2-0 win even though their performance was not exactly up to scratch, but the result was enough to secure a first-place finish in the end.
Group C did see some final day drama, after Sweden and Netherlands drew against each other in the first round of fixtures. Switzerland were the outside contenders for a qualifying spot as they needed to beat the Netherlands to qualify for the knockout stage, and although they did an admirable job of staying in the game for 84 minutes, they were defeated 1-4 in the end.
The most dramatic group by far was Group D, where all of the other three teams had a serious chance of qualifying for the knockout phase alongside France on the final day.
Iceland were in second going into the matches, but the only way they could guarantee staying there was by beating France, which was an unlikely outcome to say the least. The positive for them was that a draw between Belgium and Italy would be enough to seal progression, and things were looking positive after the first 45 minutes as neither of those teams had scored.
Belgium nipped in front in the 49th minute, and despite Italy’s best efforts to score, they could not do so, meaning that their opponents sealed the final quarter-final spot.
Knockouts
The drama continued in the knockout stage, as each of the four quarter-finals proved to be tight affairs, and barring England’s semi-final win over Sweden, no side was allowed to cruise home.
The hosts suffered a major scare in the very first knockout match as Spain took the lead early on in the second half, but Ella Toone scored a crucial equaliser in the 84th minute. The match went to extra time, where Georgia Stanway’s long-range strike separated the two teams.
Elsewhere, Sweden broke Belgian hearts by scoring the solitary goal in the second minute of stoppage time, Germany got the better of Austria and France needed extra time to edge past the Netherlands.
In the semi-finals, England delivered an emphatic performance to beat Sweden and seal a ticket to Wembley, while Alexandra Popp powered Germany past France with a lovely brace.
Sarina Wiegman named an unchanged starting line-up for the sixth-straight Euros match in the final — a tournament record across the men’s and women’s game — while Germany were forced to go without their top-scorer, Popp, because she aggravated an injury during the warm-up.
The match was scrappy, at times chaotic and very unlike what the rest of the tournament had been, but that is often the case in such finals. The opening goal was scored with a delicate chip, though, as Ella Toone netted after the hour-mark to put England in front.
Lina Magull capped off a superb passing move with a smart finish to equalise before the 80th minute, so the match went to extra time. It could have been anyone’s game thereafter, but England prevailed thanks to Chloe Kelly’s toe-poke finish after a scramble following a corner, which proved to be the decisive goal in this very close game.
Best Teams
Tournament football can often be silly in the sense that the best team is not the one that always wins due to the big element of luck involved in knockout matches, but in this case, England were certainly deserving winners.
Germany, on the other hand, were in a cluster of teams behind the champions, which also included Spain, France, Portugal and Sweden.
Norway’s terrible-looking defence is no doubt influenced by the thrashing they received from England, while Belgium forced their keeper to do a lot of work (as we will see later). The standouts as the ‘best of the rest’ are Iceland and Austria, who can be very proud of the job they did in the Euros.
One of the major tactical themes of this tournament was pressing, which almost everyone seemed to do in some way or another. In fact, there were 13 goals scored directly as a result of high turnovers, while 93 chances were created in this way.
Interestingly, there appeared to be some level of correlation between pressing and overall team performance for everyone bar France in the tournament.
Standout Players
The star player of the tournament undoubtedly was Beth Mead, who topped both the scoring and assisting charts with six goals and four assists, unsurprisingly being named player of the tournament. Alexandra Popp matched her in terms of goals, while Alessia Russo’s four goals (including a sublime backheel) and one assist were also impressive.
Looking at the underlying numbers, we see that Ellen White, Stina Blackstenius and Grace Geyoro were ahead of Mead and Popp in terms of xG, while the top creators were Delphine Cascarino, Fran Kirby and Svenja Huth.
Finally, moving on to goalkeepers, there was one very clear outlier — Belgium’s Nicky Evrard, who saved seven more goals than the average goalkeeper would have been expected to as she almost single-handedly kept her side in the tournament at times. England’s Mary Earps also did a great job, keeping out over five goals more than the average keeper.
That concludes our review of a wonderful 2022 Women’s Euros, and we now look forward to the new league season across Europe.
Stats courtesy FotMob, Twelve Football and Stats Perform via The Analyst.
