Fever pitch
As the Irish Women’s team kicks off their Euro 2025 qualifying campaign, Michael Doherty looks at our (frankly, slim!) chances of progressing from a difficult group
Be careful what you wish for. Having qualified for their first World Cup finals last summer, and then winning all before them (six games, six victories) in European Nations League B, Eileen Gleeson’s Irish team were looking forward to pitting their talents against the cream of women’s international football. With the top 16 teams in Europe taking part in the draw for Euro 2025, it’s certainly feasible that we could have been handed one or two winnable ties. Instead, Ireland (ranked 24 in the world) find themselves in Group A3 alongside France (ranked 3 in the world), reigning European champions England (ranked 4 in the world) and Sweden (ranked 5 in the world). You’ve heard of the Group of Death? Welcome to the Group of Certain Death.
Of course, it’s not all doom and gloom. If we do come last in the group, there is still a play-off option that would get us to Switzerland next summer, though it would mean dropping back down to Nations League B for the 2025 campaign. In the meantime, there is the mouth-watering prospect of seeing some of the world’s greatest players making their way to the Aviva stadium in the coming weeks. And who doesn’t want to see Katie Mccabe locking horns with her Lioness adversaries, Chloe Kelly and Lauren Hemp (trust me, there is previous!). Whatever happens in this campaign, we’ll need Ireland’s stalwarts (Katie, Denise O’sullivan and Niamh Fahey) and Ireland’s newbies (Abbie Larkin, Emily Murphy and Jess Ziu) to be on top of their games. Ireland expects… ish.