UEFA Women's Euro 2021 qualifying


The UEFA Women's Euro 2021 qualifying competition is a women's football competition that will determine the 15 teams joining the automatically qualified hosts England in the UEFA Women's Euro 2021 final tournament.
Apart from England, 47 of the remaining 54 UEFA member national teams entered the qualifying competition, including Cyprus which entered for the first time at senior women's level, and Kosovo which entered their first Women's Euro.

Format

Different from previous qualifying competitions, the preliminary round has been abolished and all entrants start from the qualifying group stage. The qualifying competition consists of two rounds:
In the qualifying group stage, teams are ranked according to points, and if tied on points, the following tiebreaking criteria are applied, in the order given, to determine the rankings :
  1. Points in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
  2. Goal difference in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
  3. Goals scored in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
  4. Away goals scored in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
  5. If more than two teams are tied, and after applying all head-to-head criteria above, a subset of teams are still tied, all head-to-head criteria above are reapplied exclusively to this subset of teams;
  6. Goal difference in all group matches;
  7. Goals scored in all group matches;
  8. Away goals scored in all group matches;
  9. Wins in all group matches;
  10. Away wins in all group matches;
  11. Disciplinary points ;
  12. UEFA coefficient ranking for the qualifying group stage draw.
To determine the three best runners-up from the qualifying group stage, the results against the teams in sixth place are discarded. The following criteria are applied :
  1. Points;
  2. Goal difference;
  3. Goals scored;
  4. Away goals scored;
  5. Wins;
  6. Away wins;
  7. Disciplinary points;
  8. UEFA coefficient ranking for the qualifying group stage draw.
In the play-offs, the team that scores more goals on aggregate over the two legs qualifies for the final tournament. If the aggregate score is level, the away goals rule is applied, i.e., the team that scores more goals away from home over the two legs advances. If away goals are also equal, extra time is played. The away goals rule is again applied after extra time, i.e., if there are goals scored during extra time and the aggregate score is still level, the visiting team advances by virtue of more away goals scored. If no goals are scored during extra time, the tie is decided by penalty shoot-out.

Schedule

The qualifying matches are played on dates that fall within the FIFA Women's International Match Calendar. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the final tournament was postponed from the summer of 2021 to 2022, and the qualifying round and play-offs were also postponed.
StageDraw dateFIFA international dates
Qualifying group stage21 February 201926 August – 3 September 2019
Qualifying group stage21 February 201930 September – 8 October 2019
Qualifying group stage21 February 20194–12 November 2019
Qualifying group stage21 February 20192–11 March 2020
Qualifying group stage21 February 20196–14 April 2020
Qualifying group stage21 February 20191–9 June 2020
Qualifying group stage21 February 201914–22 September 2020
Qualifying group stage21 February 201919–27 October 2020
Qualifying group stage21 February 201923 November – [|1] December 2020
Play-offsTBC 5–13 April 2021

Qualifying group stage

Draw

The draw for the qualifying group stage was held on 21 February 2019, 13:30 CET, at the UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland.
The teams were seeded according to their coefficient ranking, calculated based on the following:
Each group contained one team from each of Pots A–E. Based on the decisions taken by the UEFA Emergency Panel, Kosovo would not be drawn in the same group as Bosnia and Herzegovina or Serbia.
Team
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;Notes
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8,05038
4,23747
1,79348
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Groups

Group A

Group B

Group C

Group D

Group E

Group F

Group G

Group H

Group I

Ranking of second-placed teams

To determine the three best second-placed teams from the qualifying group stage which advance directly to the final tournament, only the results of the second-placed teams against the first, third, fourth and fifth-placed teams in their group are taken into account; in Groups A and B, results against the sixth-placed team are discounted. As a result, eight matches played by each second-placed team are counted for the purposes of determining the ranking.

Play-offs

Draw

The draw for the play-offs will be held on a date to be confirmed at the UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland, to decide the matchups and the order of legs.

Matches

The three play-off winners qualify for the final tournament.

Qualified teams

The following 16 teams qualify for the final tournament.
TeamQualified asQualified onPrevious appearances in Women's Euro1
3 12 20188
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Top goalscorers