The Women’s Euro is spicing up this week as the Tour de France ends on Sunday!

Women’s Euro 2022

The Women’s Euro is already in full swing as we have already been treated to some of the best quality football seen in a Euros tournament, as well as record breaking crowds filling the stands in Old Blighty. At the quarter-final stages some front runners are starting to emerge while other countries have had their dreams of lifting the trophy crushed.

This tournament got off to a fantastic start by breaking the record for the number of supporters in attendance at a Women’s Euros as early as the group stage. The total attendance at Netherland 2017 was 240,055, a number which was surpassed when France beat Belgium 2-1 at Rotherham’s New York Stadium with 15 games still left in the tournament, including the final at the iconic Wembley Stadium still to come.

Teams like Northern Ireland got the chance to play in front of huge crowds, despite their players not being fully professional and having to balance their day jobs alongside the tournament. Unfortunately, the luck of the Irish deserted them against one of the giants of the tournament in their group, England, who showed no mercy with a 5-0 victory. Although, after England’s 8-0 victory against Norway maybe Northern Ireland got away lightly.

England’s Beth Mead is currently holding the golden boot, but all could be set to change as the tournament favourites lock horns in the knockout stages. Although the home crowd will be cheering on The Lionesses, the hosts aren’t the only hot favourite to win the tournament and they are facing a team whose squad is full of Champions League winners in the quarter finals, Spain.

Another heavy hitting team is Germany who have won no fewer than six of the last seven Euros! However, they have been hindered by injuries and in recent years their impenetrable armour has been bruised, leading them to slump to fifth in the world rankings. In the 2019 world cup in France they crashed out of the tournament in the last 8 after losing to Sweden and also lost to Serbia in a world cup qualifier who were ranked 36th in the world. Nonetheless, Germany have got off to a perfect start this year and you would have to be crazy to not see a team with three straight victories of 4-0, 2-0 and 3-0 in the group stages as one of the top contenders.

On paper one team towers above the rest on who will claim victory at this tournament and that is Sweden. They are ranked number two in FIFA’s world rankings only behind the USA, making them the top ranked team in this European only tournament. They did get off to a late start in the tournament, only drawing 1-1 against the Netherlands and gaining a modest 2-1 victory against Switzerland. However, the Swedes pulled their socks up for their final group game, thrashing Portugal 5-0. This result will have instilled a lot of confidence in a team that are already used to going far in international tournaments as they take on Belgium in the quarters, a team who didn’t shine that brightly during the group stages.

Finally, the Netherlands were one of the pre-tournament favourites after they won the last Euros in 2017. However, after seeing their two wins and a draw in the group stages some people think the Netherlands haven’t shown enough form to hold on to the title. It will help the team when their all-time record goal scorer Vivianne Miedema returns after catching covid and missing the second two group stage matches. 

That being said, it is hard to know if Miedema will make such a difference when very shortly before the tournament began the Netherlands lost 5-1 to England in a friendly match which saw England completely dominate in a second half which could have created an even bigger score line. If they come up against England again in the following rounds it would be hard to see this result do such a massive 360 turn.

Tour de France

The final week of the Tour de Frances is upon us, and we are all eagerly awaiting to see who will claim the Yellow Jersey on Sunday. The two-time defending Champion Tadej Pogacar sits in second place and needs to make up ground on the race leader Jonas Vingegaard in the mountain races that are to come. Geraint Thomas is sitting in third place and although victory in Paris may seem a long shot he still has his eyes on the prize, if the stars align it could be a possibility. 

A standout emerging rider from this year’s tour is the Brit Tom Pidcock who was the surprise winner of Stage 12. At age 22 Pidcock is not only the 2020 Olympic Gold Medallist in the mountain-bike category but also the 2022 cyclo-cross world champion. Pidcock used his daredevil cycling skills to outdo the other competitors in a crazy descent. The rare and brave versatility of Pidcock makes him an interesting watch in this tour.