Playoff draw for women's Euro 2025 gives past champions Norway, Sweden path to tournament

 Two-time European women’s soccer champion Norway must beat Albania and then either Croatia or Northern Ireland in the upcoming qualifying playoffs to advance to the 2025 tournament.

The draw for the Euro 2025 qualifying playoffs was made Friday, with Sweden — the first European champion in 1984 and finalist at the past two Olympics — to play Luxembourg in the first round. The winner advances to face Bosnia and Herzegovina or Serbia.

The first-round games will be played from Oct. 23-29. The second round is scheduled for Nov. 27-Dec. 3.

Seven of the 28 teams in the playoffs will advance to complete the 16-nation tournament lineup.

Norway was without injured forward Ada Hegerberg during the qualifying group games and finished third behind Italy and the Netherlands. Those two teams advanced directly to Euro 2025, which will be hosted by Switzerland in eight cities next July.

The other teams to advance from the groups were defending champion England, world champion Spain, Denmark, France, Germany, Iceland, Italy and the Netherlands. Germany has won eight of the 13 European titles, including six straight from 1995 to 2013.

UEFA will make the tournament draw on Dec. 16 in Lausanne, Switzerland.

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