Euro 2025: Newcomers to take on Wales football giants
Two decades ago, the Welsh women’s soccer team was prevented from playing by their own bosses because money was needed for the men’s games. Now the women are making their tournament debut
They are debutants, the lowest-ranked side in the competition and face the previous two champions in the group stage. But Wales believe they have a few ways to get an edge namely book clubs, yoga and a “Welsh red vein” that runs through the squad.
After a string of near misses in previous qualification campaigns, Wales secured a spot at Euro 2025 with a win over Ireland back in December under Canadian coach Rhian Wilkinson. Like many of her players, Wilkinson has roots in Wales that she says run deep.
“I think we’re starting to see now, as [women’s] football becomes more and more professionalized, that pathway players, players with connections to Wales, are now eligible and we’re utilizing that more,” she told DW.
“What I have to balance as the coach is that we never lose that this is a Welsh team with a Welsh red vein going through it. That is critical. We can never lose that connection, that pride and I think pathway players have to feel it, and have to feel it as strongly as native born Welsh players, which I think they do. We’ve got a great team.”
Making the most of it
After taking over in early 2024, Wilkinson’s side lost only one of their 11 games in her first year despite relatively few big name players.
“We don’t have the player depth and talent pools that bigger nations have,” Wilkinson said of a country with a population of 3 million.
“But what we do have is a connection to the team, to that sisterhood, to that family that allows them to play at a standard that I think is consistently surprising people, because they’ll give everything for their team and their badge.”
Wilkinson won 181 caps as a player for Canada and has named an experienced squad led by 38-year-old Jess Fishlock. The Wales midfielder was described as “incredibly important” by her coach. When the former FFC Frankfurt, Lyon and Seattle Reign midfielder made her Wales debut in 2006, things were very different.
Just three years earlier, Wales had pulled out of qualifying for Euro 2005 after the Welsh Football Association (FAW) decided trips to to Belarus, Kazakhstan, Estonia and Israel were too expensive and the cash was needed for the men’s team.
The pace of change has been rapid in the two decades since. But while all of the Welsh squad are professional, the domestic league is not, with not a single squad member drawn from it. Welsh players still have to move abroad, most commonly to neighboring England, to make it as a top level footballer. Bethan Wooley, the FAW’s strategic lead for women’s and girls’ football, thinks Euro 2025 will provide a springboard for further change.
