Who will succeed the Englishman Beth Mead, best player of the last euro who had led her selection, England, to raise the trophy at home in 2022? From this Wednesday, July 2 and for a little over three weeks, the sixteen best teams in Europe compete in Switzerland. Two games are scheduled every day, at 6 and 9 p.m., in one of the eight stadiums that will host the competition. Before the first blue match on Saturday evening against England, Liberty looked at the profile of five players who should die the screen in the coming weeks.
If there was only one player to look at all of the competition, it would necessarily be Aitana Bonmati. On a field, the gaming leader of Spain is of elegance that has no equivalent: it is as if the ball stuck to him at the foot and that around her, everything was slowing down. Of a feint of body, a hook, or a pass which it is alone capable of seeing, Barcelona can disorganize a whole defensive curtain.
For a little over two years, the Spaniard has been walking alone on her planet: she won the last two gold balloons, the last two titles of best player in the FIFA of the year, has been elected best player of the last three champions leagues and the last World Cup. The one who was born in the south of Barcelona and who has made her entire pro career at Barça also accumulates collective awards: six ligas, three Champions Leagues, a World Cup and a League of Nations. He misses only one euro, competition that Spain has never won, and his record would be complete. Just a presentation of viral meningitis which nailed her for several days in the hospital, the midfielder is still uncertain for the first match of the Roja, against Portugal this Thursday.
Among the James, football is a family affair. First there is the elder Reece, 25 years old, right back of Chelsea and Three Lions. Then Lauren, two years older, attacker, who also evolves under the blue of Chelsea and the white of Three Lionnesses. Elected Best Young of Women’s Super League (the English first division) in 2023, then best player of the blues in 2024, Lauren James stands out for her sense of goal, her ability to make balloon differences and gain speed of her opponents.
When she is in full capacity of her means, the attacker, sometimes positioned as a game leader, is a poison for the defenses. But for the past year, James has been more often in the infirmary than on the ground. Her calf and her thigh did not leave her quiet, the Londonian missed a good part of the past season. She returned to a friendly in front of Jamaica on Sunday and should be confined to a luxury replacement role during the Euro. Against France, Saturday at 9 p.m., she could start on the bench and enter the last thirty minutes to press already very tired organizations. For the BBC, the 23 -year -old player will be “The key if the lionesses want to defend their crown” won at home in 2022.
His last euro, in 2022, had turned into a nightmare. After about fifteen minutes, in the second group match against Belgium, Marie-Antoinette Katoto stopped on an harmless action. She had stood her knee, had grimacted, then asked for the change. The next day, the staff of the French team announced that his star attacker had broken the anterior ligament of the right knee and had cracked the meniscus. The injury had held him away from the field for more than a year and also cost him the 2023 World Cup in Australia and New Zealand.
Since then, Marie-Antoinette Katoto has returned. If she has not fully found her level of efficiency before her injury (more than one goal per game on average in the first division between 2017 and 2022) at PSG, a club she left on bad terms after the season to join OL, she continues to be precious in the French team. During the Paris Olympic Games, she finished best scorer in the competition with five goals in four games. And it was she who offered the goal of the Bleues victory against Brazil (3-2) last Friday for their last preparation match.
She did not experience the greatest hours of Norway, not born in European titles in 1987 and 1993 and barely the age of following the victory at the 1995 World Cup and the Olympic title of Athens in 2000. But Caroline Graham Hansen was there during the last epic of the Reds and Blue. In 2013, when she was only 18 years old, the field (sometimes very offensive) of the field was already firmly installed in the national selection, to the point of playing the six games of her team during one euro which will see them fail (1-0), in the final, against Germany. Twelve years later, Barcelona is still there, screwed to the Norwegian midfield.
Like good wine, the 30 -year -old seems to be improving over time. Twelfth best player in the world according to FIFA in 2019, eighth in 2020, she finished on the Podium of the Ballon d’Or in 2024, preceded by her teammate at Barça Aitana Bonmati. The Norwegian came out of a crazy season which had seen her finished the best marker (21) and a passer (19) of the Spanish championship and greatly contribute to the victory in the Champions League of her team. She is on track this Thursday against Switzerland, a tournament nation-host.
For the Munichoise, the challenge is size: make people forget Alexandra Popp. The star attacker of the German selection, who had planted a double in the semi-finals of the last euro to dismiss the French, took his international retirement after the Paris Olympic Games. And it is now up to the Bayern player to take over from the third best manager in the history of Mannschaft.
Goals, Lea Schüller knows how to score. When it is confident, number 11 plants almost every match. And for three months, the 1.73m attacker doubts little: she scored twelve goals in the last ten games she has played. The French team should watch her closely: the Blue could meet the serial rider from the quarter -finals on July 17 or 19.
Worth a look
