Key events
Half-time entertainment. Faye Carruthers is joined by Tom Garry, Sophie Downey and Tim Stillman, who run the rule over the opening games and preview England and Wales’ first matches. Get on it!
HALF TIME: Germany 0-0 Poland
There’s just enough time for Dudek, who has been staunch in defence for Poland, to head one last German corner clear, then the whistle goes for the half-time break. Poland have done exceptionally well to hold Germany at arm’s length. Germany have been blunt up front, but unlucky as well, losing their captain Gwinn to injury.
45 min +3: Bühl, who has been Germany’s best player by far, cuts in from the left before feeding Dallmann down the channel. Dallmann crosses and finds Schüller eight yards out. A big chance, but Schüller scuffs it dismally wide right.
45 min +2: It’s Dudek versus Schüller again, but this time the striker wins the duel, drawing a foul just to the right of the D. Bühl fancies this. She aims a curler towards the top-left corner, but Szemik has it covered as it flies harmlessly over the bar.
45 min: There will be four additional first-half minutes.
44 min: Bühl charges down the left again. She crosses for Schüller, who hopes to head home from six yards, but is cleverly eased out of the way by Dudek. On the German bench, coach Wück continues to fume quietly. The quiet fume is the most worrying grade of fume, so expect him to tell it as he sees it to his misfiring team during the break.
43 min: Bühl dribbles down the left. She wins another German corner, and swings it in herself. It nearly finds Schüller at the far stick, but the ball drops kindly for Wiankowska, who hoicks clear.
41 min: Poor Gwinn, that was hard to watch. She’s replaced by Wamser.
39 min: … but Gwinn goes down again immediately. Crumbling to the floor … and dissolving in tears. She knows there’s something wrong. She can’t continue. She caught her studs in the turf making that challenge on (the entirely innocent) Pajor, but it’s not clear whether that’s another knee problem or a groin issue. Either way, the German captain is in real distress, and is helped off in tears. Awful scenes for a player who has had such rotten luck with serious injury in the past.
38 min: Pajor looked slightly concerned for a moment there, as Gwinn stayed down, looking in some pain. Gwinn has suffered torn cruciate ligaments in both knees during her career, so it’s an understandable reaction. Gwinn gets up and hobbles off, and comes back on …
36 min: Tomasiak advances down the right, checks back, and whips a dangerous ball towards the far stick. It’s turned out for a corner, which leads to some head tennis. The ball’s half cleared, then Padilla rolls a pass down the middle for Pajor, who can’t get a shot away due to Gwinn’s slide tackle. Berger gathers, but Gwinn’s hurt herself while extending a leg. On comes the physio.
34 min: Dudek cops Schüller’s elbow on the bridge of the nose. Completely accidental. Play’s stopped for a minute, but thankfully the Polish defender hasn’t suffered too much, and once it’s clear blood hasn’t been drawn, she’s fine to continue.
33 min: Buhl’s cross from the left nearly finds Schüller, but Dudek is on point to eyebrow out for a corner. The set piece is half cleared, then returned into the Polish box. Gwinn sends a weak header straight at Szemik.
31 min: Poland go long again for Pajor. The striker romps down the left and curves infield, banging a rising shot straight at Berger, who tips over. Then the flag goes up for offside.
29 min: A brief break for beverages and the dissemination of tactical advice.
28 min: Gwinn makes good down the inside-right channel and falls to her knees inside the box. She was pushed very lightly in the small of the back by Padilla, so a penalty is demanded. But the referee’s not interested at all, rightly so. The first sign of frustration in the German ranks; they’ll have hoped to be ahead by now.
26 min: That’ll give Poland some hope. However Germany go up the other end, Dallmann probing on the edge of the box, but neither Schuller nor Brand manage to find enough space to receive a defence-breaking pass. Poland swarm and clear their lines.
24 min: Senss drills a pass down the inside-right channel for Brand, who pings a low shot towards the bottom right. Szemik does very well to turn the ball around the post, then claims the corner. She immediately sends the ball long, forcing Berger to come out of her area to head clear, under pressure from Pajor. Her clearance is immediately returned, and Padilla is one on one with the keeper! She doesn’t win the battle, though. Berger spreads herself to parry, and though Padilla has another go, hooking towards the bottom right, Minge is on the line to clear out for a corner. Then the flag goes up for offside, which Padilla was for the second phase.
22 min: Space for Brand on the right. The cross is overhit. On the touchline, Germany coach Christian Wück frowns quite a lot. His team not quite clicking yet.
21 min: Schüller probes down the middle again, but this time is harried off the ball by Szymczak. Germany – who have made 125 passes to Poland’s 43 – are beginning to create more dangerous situations now.
19 min: A simple blooter down the middle nearly does for Poland. Dudek hesitates and nearly lets in Schüller. Dudek does well to recover and hassle Schüller before she can get a shot away. For a split second there, it looked as though Schüller would get clear.
17 min: Minge nearly splits the Polish defence with a clever ball down the inside-right channel. But it’s deflected away from Brand at the last moment by Wiankowska’s extended leg. Without Wiankowska’s intervention, Brand would have found herself in a very promising situation.
15 min: Gwinn finds space on the right and flashes a cross through the Polish box. Nobody in white connects, which is just as well for Szemik, who wasn’t best placed.
14 min: Achcińska is clipped out on the right wing, and here’s a chance for Poland to load the German box. Achcińska takes it herself, and sends a long diagonal towards Szymczak, rushing in down the left channel. Szymczak meets the dropping ball on the left-hand corner of the six-yard box, and flashes a volley wide. That was a chance, albeit a difficult one. It would have been a hell of a goal.
12 min: Linder looks for Brand in the middle with a cross from a deep position on the left. The ball sails over everyone’s head and out for a goal kick. Poland will be pretty happy with proceedings so far, given Szemik hasn’t had anything to do yet. Meanwhile Charles Antaki has been squinting at the Group C table as it stands. Perhaps too hard, and for too long. “Germany W0 D0 L0 F0, which could be Germany WOmen DOn’t LOse Football, though that really hasn’t been uniformly true since the days of the fearsomely great Birgit Prinz. In fact they’ve had a couple of lean years and a rubbish 2023 World Cup. If Prinz is in the stands perhaps she can come down to the touchline and glower at them.”
10 min: A ball thrown into the Polish box from the left. Szemik is bundled over softly, and goalkeepers always get those sort of decisions, so the whistle goes to release the pressure. It’s an especially generous decision given that it was her own player, Wiankowska, who did the deed.
9 min: Bühl pops up yet again, sashaying down the inside-left channel before dragging a shot across the face of goal and wide right. Poland need to get a handle on her and quick.
7 min: More space for Bühl down the left. Her cross is too heavy and flies out of play on the other side. “I predict that the Poland keeper will be even busier than the letters z, y, and k on your keyboard,” writes our old friend Peter Oh-nomastics (seeing we’re doing surname gags right now).
5 min: Some neat skill from Nüsken out on the left, as she nearly wriggles clear of three challengers. Eventually she’s knocked off the ball but for a nanosecond there, things threatened to open up for Germany down the left flank.
3 min: Germany get their foot on the ball and ping it around. Dallmann scuffs a shot from the edge of the Polish box, but it takes a deflection and flies out for a corner. However the flag then goes up for offside earlier in the move.
2 min: … and it’s a fast start by both teams, because here’s Bühl bowling down the left. She crosses high and Szemik punches clear.
Poland get the ball rolling. Pajor immediately dribbles into the box down the right but can’t find anyone in the middle. Then they come again, Achcińska’s low cross smothered by Berger in the Germany goal. Poland have arrived at a major championship!
… but before kick-off, there’s a minute of silence to be perfectly observed. Both teams huddle. Then the warmest round of applause. Oh Diogo. Oh André. Our hearts break for you. xx
The teams are out. Germany in white shirts and black shorts, Poland decked out from head to toe in red. We’ll be off once coins have been tossed, fists bumped, and pennants exchanged.
Our man in St Gallen, Tom Garry, sets the scene with a pre-match snippet. His verdict from Arena St Gallen will be landing after the game, so make sure to hang around for that.
It is another beautiful evening in Switzerland and the historic city of St Gallen, surrounded by luscious green, rolling hills. It is a city where old meets new; ancient abbeys meet modern infrastructure, perhaps the perfect setting for this contest between the grand old force of European women’s football – Germany – and one of this summer’s newcomers to women’s major tournaments in Poland. The debutants have nothing to lose tonight, against the tournament’s most successful nation. Germany, on the other hand, will want to make a strong start akin to the performance Spain delivered last night.
The national anthems. Only the third verse of the Deutschlandlied is sung these days. That’s for the best on balance, though it’s a shame the first two lines of the second stanza are no longer used, because they’d work pretty well in this context, and there’s very little to argue with here …
♬ German women, German loyalty,
German wine and German song ♪♬
Meanwhile the first line of the Polish number …
🎼♯ Poland has not yet succumbed!!! 🎶🎶
… will be well worth their belting out during the pre-match niceties, given their odds against, while they still can.
A major tournament simply isn’t a major tournament without a wallchart. Don’t worry if you haven’t been able to source one, because our resident artistic genius David Squires has been to work and has your back. You know the pack drill: Print it out! Pin it up! Fill it in! Make a series of primary-school-level errors while filling out at least one of the final tables!
The Guardian Experts’ Network has run the rule over every team at Euro 2025. Bayern Munich right-back Giulia Gwinn has 60 caps and a number-one bestselling biography to her name …
… while Poland striker Ewa Pajor has scored 43 goals for Barcelona this season, plus eight for her country. No wonder she’s in the running for the Ballon d’Or.
Today’s other match in Group C has just finished. Filippa Angeldahl’s low drive was enough for Sweden to see off Denmark in Lancy. Barry Glendenning was covering that one, blow for blow; this is how the table looks as a result.
1. Sweden W1 D0 L0 F1 A0 Pts 3
2. Germany W0 D0 L0 F0 A0 Pts 0
3. Poland W0 D0 L0 F0 A0 Pts 0
4. Denmark P1 W0 D0 L1 F0 A1 Pts 0
Germany’s starting XI features a couple of WSL stars in Manchester City defender Rebecca Knaak and Chelsea midfielder Sjoeke Nüsken. Bayern Munich’s Lea Schüller, who scored three times against Poland in the two aforementioned matches last year, leads the line.
Poland’s sole WSL representative is their goalkeeper Kinga Szemik. Four of their starting XI – Barcelona striker Ewa Pajor, PSG defender Paulina Dudek, Cologne defender Sylwia Matysik and Fleury midfielder Ewelina Kamczyk – were part of the side that won the 2013 Women’s U17 European Championship.
The teams
Germany: Berger, Gwinn, Minge, Knaak, Linder, Senss, Nusken, Brand, Dallmann, Buehl, Schuller.
Subs: Johannes, Hendrich, Wamser, Lohmann, Freigang, Dabritz, Zicai, Cerci, Kett, Hoffmann, Kleinherne, Mahmutovic.
Poland: Szemik, Matysik, Szymczak, Dudek, Wiankowska, Achcinska, Pawollek, Kamczyk, Tomasiak, Pajor, Padilla-Bidas.
Subs: Radkiewicz, Zieniewicz, Wos, Mesjasz, Zawistowska, Grabowska, Kokosz, Jedlinska, Slowinska, Krezyman, Adamek, Seweryn.
Referee: Stephanie Frappart (France).
Preamble
Germany are, by an absurd distance, the most successful team in Uefa Women’s Euros history. They’ve won this championship (and its predecessor) eight times; Norway are next on the all-time list with two. Poland by comparison are making their tournament debut this evening. Then take the head-to-head record between these two countries: Germany 6, Poland 0, to an aggregate score of 28-3. As neighbourly rivalries go, it’s a particularly lop-sided one.
But in football there’s always hope, and here’s Poland’s: they’re currently on an 11-match unbeaten run, a sequence that incorporates ten wins. Yay! The only problem is, just before they began that run last year, they were beaten home and away by … you can tell where this is heading, can’t you … Germany. A 4-1 defeat away, a 3-1 loss at home. Oh, and Germany are on a five-game winning run of their own, having scored 24 goals in those matches. Which may explain why you can get odds of 33-1 on their winning this evening. So this should be a shoo-in for Germany, a chance to make a statement like Spain did last night. We’ll find out whether the Frauenteam make good on that promise soon enough. Kick-off is at 8pm UK time. It’s on!
