Women’s Euro 2021 qualifying draw: Hungary to face Sweden and Iceland

The next major challenge for the Hungarian women’s national team will be the UEFA 2021 European Championship qualifiers. The 16-team final tournament is being held in England, with 47 countries aiming for 15 places up for grabs alongside the hosts who qualify automatically. Hungary were one of the third seeds in the draw which was held on Thursday afternoonand performed by Nadine Kessler, a former European champion as a player with Germany and now Women’s Football Advisor at UEFA.

There are nine groups: two six-team groups and seven fife-team groups. Qualification begins at the end of August with the nine group winners qualifying for England along with the three best runners-up. The further six second-placed teams will play-off for the final three qualification places on offer.

“We always take care to not get carried away. Looking at the draw it’s clear that we’ll most likely be challenging for third place; second place would require a super-human effort. At the same time, because of our long-term objectives and especially our bid to host UEFA Euro 2025, it is important that the recent strides taken in the women’s game here can be seen in our qualification results”, Gábor Török, President of the MLSZ Women’s Committee told mlsz.hu.

Hungary have never qualified for the European Championship, and it certainly isn’t going to be easy this time round either. “Our group isn’t easy, but I believe there are strong teams in all the groups. We knew that we would be drawn against at least two tough opponents”, said Hungary head coach Edina Markó after the draw.

“In terms of qualification the second-seed team can be decisive. We got Iceland, whom we haven’t played against in recent times, but we’ll naturally be following their results. They’re a very strong team, among the best, and they defeated Germany in the recent World Cup qualifiers. We know Slovakia better, having played against them on many occasions in the Balaton Cup and we can’t dismiss Latvia either. It’s not going to be easy, but we’ll approach it like any other qualification group in that we’d like to be in contention right until the very end”, she added.

Qualification group matchdays

Matchday 1: 26 August 2019

Matchday 2: 3 September 2019

Matchday 3: 30 September 2019

Matchday 4: 8 October 2019

Matchday 5: 4 November 2019

Matchday 6: 12 November 2019

Matchday 7: 2 March 2020

Matchday 8: 11 March 2020

Matchday 9: 1 June 2020

Matchday 10: 9 June 2020

Matchday 11: 14 September 2020

Matchday 12: 22 September 2020

Play-off draw: Nyon, 25 September 2020

Play-off round: 19 and 27 October 2020

Finals draw England, end of 2002

Final: Wembley, England, July 2021

UEFA 2021 Women’s European Championship Qualification groups

Group A: Netherlands (holders), Russia, Slovenia, Turkey, Kosovo, Estonia

Group B: Italy, Denmark, Bosnia-Hercegovina, Israel, Malta, Georgia

Group C: Norway, Wales, Belarus, Northern Ireland, Faroe Islands

Group D: Spain, Czech Republic, Poland, Moldova, Azerbaijan

Group E: Scotland, Finland, Portugal, Albania, Cyprus

Group F: Sweden, Iceland, HUNGARY, Slovakia, Latvia

Group G: France, Austria, Serbia, Kazakhstan, Macedonia

Group H: Switzerland, Belgium, Romania, Croatia, Lithuania

Group I: Germany Ukraine, Ireland, Greece, Montenegro