Lionesses qualify, Ireland beat France & Caldentey & Codina shine for Spain
Our Arsenal Women are currently away with their countries before they travel back to North London to start pre-season training for this year. Plenty of our women have been in action over the last 2 weeks, keeping up their fitness and competing for their countries in the Euro Qualifiers and in preparation for this year’s Olympics and Arsenal Women’s fans, like always, have been treated to a lot of action while we wait for the season to begin. Here’s a run down of some of the top Arsenal international news this week.
Firstly, our England international qualified for The 2025 Euro’s in Switzerland yesterday as they held Sweden to a 0-0 draw that saw them finish 2nd in the Group and automatically qualified. The European title holders will be looking to hold onto their Trophy and cement themselves in history again. The game wasn’t action packed but Alessia Russo, Beth Mead and Leah Williamson all started for the Lionesses as they saw out a draw. England only needed a point to go through and did what they needed to do and will now look to prepare to defend the trophy next year.
Arsenal Women’s Katie McCabe led out Ireland in what was a historic 3-1 win over France last night. A game that France didn’t need to win as they already sit top of the Group table and have automatically qualified for next year’s Euro’s, but still put their best foot forward and just weren’t good enough to beat the Irish. Ireland hadn’t won a game in the Group stages and will take a lot of confidence from this win. Having a great second half and pulling off a win that many would have doubted. McCabe as always came good for Ireland, staying solid at back and leading her country and team to victory. Ireland will now enter into the play offs for a chance to qualify for the Euro’s.
Lastly our Spanish duo Laia Codina and Mariona Caldentey both got minutes for Spain as they flew through the Group stages and automatically qualified for The Euro’s. The World Cup winners had another solid run of games, only losing 1 out of 6 games when they were beat by The Czech Republic and were forced to finish the game off with 10 women.
Codina started the game at CB and played for 70 minutes before being taken off. Caldentey came on around the same time, seeing off the last 20 minutes, but looked extremely solid while on the pitch, giving Arsenal Women’s fans a taste of what we should be expecting this season.
What’s your thoughts Gooners?