TODAY'S Euro final between England and Germany at Wembley will complete a tournament which has changed perceptions of women's football in the host country.
All 90,000 available tickets for the showdown between the two European footballing rivals have been sold, which means the attendance should eclipse the men's Euro final record of 79,115. The previous best overall women's tournament attendance of 240,055, set at Euro 2017, was doubled during Wednesday's semi-final between Germany and France.
Television audiences have also been impressive, with a peak figure of 9.3 million viewers watching the earlier semi between England and Sweden. The FA's decision to invest heavily in the sport has been spectacularly vindicated.
All of the above only underlines how much failure to qualify has cost Scotland, and not just in financial terms. Despite our proximity to the tournament, media coverage has been all too predictably muted with the national team not involved.
Despite that, it is essential that all stakeholders in the game, led by the Scottish FA and including the clubs, take advantage of the success story in England. The women's game has for some time been the obvious football growth area, but a lack of leadership, or even interest, from the top has been all too obvious – had it not been for a bloody-minded Swede we would still be waiting to qualify for anything.
Today's final features another woman in the Anna Signeul mould. England head coach Sarina Wiegman fought the same battles for equality in her native Netherlands before leading the Dutch to a home Euro 2017 success and the World Cup final in France two years later, when they were beaten by the United States.
The 52-year-old is now involved in a third successive major championship final, and with England enjoying home advantage will hope to avenge the 2009 final when Germany won 6-2. The Germans have won eight of the twelve women's Euros and also have a female head coach in Martina Voss-Tecklenburg, but less auspiciously she was in charge of top seeds Switzerland when they finished second to Scotland in 2019 World Cup group qualifying.
England are unbeaten in 17 games under Wiegman, including a 3-1 win over Germany in February. They have scored 20 goals in their five Euro matches to date, with eight different scorers led by Beth Mead, who has scored six.
By contrast, Germany have been heavily reliant on Alexandra Popp to find the net in tight games, the Wolfsburg striker having also scored six of the team's 13 goals. England are the marginal favourites today, and while Wiegman's preparations will be meticulous, one aspect can probably be encapsulated in two words – Stop Popp.
CONFIRMATION that Jane Ross has an ACL rupture is a sickening blow for the Rangers striker. As with her long-term international team-mate Jo Love, it comes as the 62-goal Scotland player is approaching the end of her career.
Ross, who will be 33 in September, watched the Glasgow Cup win against Celtic seven days ago on crutches, having sustained the injury in an earlier friendly at Spartans.
She will now, unfortunately, miss most of the season, and her obvious target is next summer's World Cup in Australia and New Zealand should Scotland qualify. As with today's Euro final, strikers have provided much of the pre-season SWPL 1 interest, with Celtic's Charlie Wellings also unlikely to feature in this campaign either.
The 24-year-old, who has found the net in both the FA Cup and Scottish Cup finals, was top scorer in Scotland last season with 40 goals. To put that in perspective, Ross and Lizzie Arnot were joint top scorers for champions Rangers with 26 in all competitions.
An announcement that Wellings has moved elsewhere is expected imminently. Sarah Harkes and Jodie Bartle are not likely to be with Celtic this season either.
Arnot will now be favourite to be top scorer in the upcoming campaign. Nevertheless, there are some interesting additions to the striking departments at other clubs.
Glasgow City, who also have Priscila Chinchilla, have signed free-scoring Mexican internationalist Desiree Monsivais. The 34-year-old will, however, miss the opening two SWPL 1 games against Spartans and Motherwell because of visa issues – but will hopefully be available for the Champions League tie against AS Roma on August 17.
Another contender for top scorer will be Krystyna Freda. The American was a prolific scorer in Cyprus and will provide Hibernian with a strong presence up front, having also briefly been with Glasgow City during a pandemic-hit loan spell in 2020.
Hearts, too, have brought in Katie Rood. The 29-year-old has scored five times for New Zealand in her 15 games and joins from Southampton.
