Euro 2025 winners and losers: From England's triumphant Lionesses and Germany's inspiring Ann-Katrin Berger to more major tournament woe for the Netherlands and Norway

Sarina Wiegman is the queen of the European Championship, with her now triumphing in each of the last three editions of the tournament. To win it twice with two different nations - with the Netherlands in 2017 and England in 2022 - was a remarkable feat in itself. To add another title on the end of that, though, puts her in elite company as the joint-most successful coach in competition history. Gero Bisanz and Tina Theune are the only other managers to have won three Euros titles, both with Germany.

Yet, Wiegman's achievements are particularly special. For a start, they come in an era where the tournament is bigger and there are therefore more games to play and more hurdles to overcome. Plus, neither of the two teams she has guided to the title had won a major tournament before, with the success of the Dutch particularly surprising.

That's not to belittle the success of Bisanz, Theune or those incredible Germany teams, with Theune also overseeing a World Cup win back in 2003, but rather to illustrate that Wiegman really is in a league of her own when we talk about her success in Europe. Can she translate that into a World Cup triumph in two years time, having lost in the last two finals? You'd be brave to bet against her.

During the group stages, this felt like Alexia Putellas' tournament. In the form of her life - which is some statement when talking about a two-time Ballon d'Or winner - the 31-year-old was the best player on show through the first portion of Euro 2025, scoring three goals and providing four assists in just three games as Spain showed why they were the front-runners for the title.

However, the knockout stages produced a slightly different story. Putellas was by no means poor as La Roja made their way to the final, not at all, but she didn't steal the show as many might have expected. That she was subbed off with 20 minutes of the 90 remaining in the final was a brutal blow, too, as head coach Montse Tome surprisingly ensured that one of the best players in the world wouldn't be sticking around to potentially win the game.

It was a disappointing way for Putellas' summer to end, especially given how well it all started. It all might have had telling impact on her Ballon d'Or chances, too.

It's crazy to think that Chloe Kelly could've been sat at home watching this tournament instead of stealing the show in it on a regular basis. The winger was completely out of favour at Manchester City at the start of 2025, so much so that her lack of game time led to Wiegman omitting her from an England squad for the first time in her tenure back in February.

However, a vital six-month loan spell at Arsenal got her back on the pitch on a regular basis, which not only led to a Champions League title and a permanent move this summer, but also a place back in the Lionesses picture.

Kelly didn't start a single game in Switzerland and yet, thanks to her match-winning interventions in the quarter-finals, semi-finals and final, this is likely to be remembered as her tournament.

When Spain won the World Cup in 2023, few put it down to head coach Jorge Vilda. The current Morocco boss was a controversial figure whose management was criticised much more often than it was praised, with most instead pointing to the brilliance of players like Aitana Bonmati and Salma Paralluelo for La Roja's triumph. So, when Vilda left after that tournament, many wondered if there were new levels this team could go to. Under Montse Tome, though, they've not done that yet.

Tome was Vilda's assistant during that World Cup and so there were skeptics from the get-go when she was appointed as his successor, meaning the 43-year-old was tasked with proving herself to the doubters right away. In the two years since, she has now coached at two major tournaments, at which Spain have been the heavy favourites to win both. They've not triumphed at either.

There have, of course, been successes in that time, most notably in the form of the Nations League title La Roja won last year. But there are still a lot of questions around Tome that were certainly not answered at Euro 2025 as many of the same problems that plagued this team at last year's Olympics remained on show.

No one has enjoyed more of a breakthrough at Euro 2025 than Michelle Agyemang. The 19-year-old was almost totally unknown to those outside of England ahead of the tournament - and her stature at home was not much bigger either. A highly-rated striker in the England youth teams and the Arsenal academy, she only enjoyed her first full season in the Women's Super League this year, on loan at Brighton, and went to Switzerland with one senior international cap to her name.

What Agyemang has done in the last few weeks, then, has seen her profile explode in England especially. The teenager scored the crucial equaliser when the Lionesses came from 2-0 down in the quarter-finals against Sweden, before repeating the trick in more dramatic fashion in the semi-finals as her stoppage-time leveller against Italy kept her country in the tournament just when they looked like they were crashing out. It was no surprise to see her crowned Young Player of the Tournament.

Less than four months after her Lionesses debut, Agyemang has emerged as a must-have for Wiegman in her squads moving forward, and has surely given Arsenal plenty of food for thought ahead of the 2025-26 season, too.

For his first major tournament in charge of France, new coach Laurent Bonadei made some huge decisions. Long-time captain Wendie Renard, 200-cap icon Eugenie Le Sommer and in-form creative midfielder Kenza Dali all fell by the wayside as he selected his squad for the Euros, with the 55-year-old quoting Albert Einstein in his explanation for such drastic changes: "As Einstein said, ‘Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. I want different results for this team so I have gone with a different selection."

However, it only resulted in a similar outcome. For the seventh time in their last eight tournaments, France were eliminated in the quarter-finals. The manner of this summer's exit was particularly disappointing, too, with Les Bleues struggling to break down a Germany side that was reduced to 10 players after only 13 minutes.

It means Bonadei's controversial decisions have been placed firmly under the microscope and there is even more pressure on him to succeed moving forwards. Given Dali has said she will tell her side of the story after the Euros, so not to distract from her team-mates' efforts in Switzerland, this is something that isn't going to go away just yet, either.

One of the most heartening stories of Euro 2025 was the success of the home nation. Switzerland came into the tournament with just one win from their last nine games, a stretch which included two defeats to Norway and two draws with Iceland, both of whom they were going to meet in the group stages. Though Group A was wide open and the Swiss would have the home support, it was still hard to confidently back them to deliver and reach the knockout stages of this competition for the first time.

How they performed was a pleasant surprise, then. La Nati were often passive in the Nations League fixtures that occupied the first six months of their year, but they were anything but in this tournament, providing entertainment as well as results on their way to the last eight. It might have ended in a quarter-final defeat to Spain, but that was no shame, especially with them putting up a good fight in the eventual 2-0 loss.

"It's incredible," Switzerland captain Lia Walti told ITV after the win over Iceland. "Before the game, I probably cried about three times because, when we came to the stadium, seeing all the fans, seeing all the videos of the city, how amazing people are to support us, it's something we've never experienced before in Switzerland. I hope it's going to do a lot in Switzerland to keep pushing women's football in the right direction."

This was an absolute disaster of a tournament for the Netherlands. Winners of the title in 2017, they were expected to be a contender in Switzerland, but instead didn't even make it out of the group stage, conceding nine goals across damning defeats to England and France to end their campaign before the knockout rounds.

There were signs that this was coming. Andries Jonker had been prickly with the media in the build-up to his final summer in charge, even appearing on a podcast two days before the Euros began to admit that he wondered if he should press ahead, having known since April that his contract wouldn't be renewed. "You talk to people around you and there’s no one around me that says that I need to do this," he explained. "They all say: ‘You shouldn’t do this. Stay at home, let them figure it out'.”

The chaos continued into the Euros. Sherida Spitse, the team's captain, criticised Jonker for those comments; Danielle van de Donk said she was fit to start against England, after Jonker had said she wasn't; Damaris Egurrola told De Volkskrant that she was being deployed in a role that didn't suit her, and that she was getting "the short end of the stick".

Really, it's perhaps no surprise things didn't work out for the Dutch, who will look forward to a fresh start under England assistant Arjan Veurink, who is set to now officially become the Oranje's new head coach as this tournament ends.

Goalkeeping in women's football has so often come in for ridicule in tournaments gone by. With the sport only recently professionalising on a broader scale, it is only in the last few years that goalkeeper coaches have become the norm at elite clubs and national teams, with many shot-stoppers going without that specialised coaching for the majority of their careers.

Euro 2025, though, was a fantastic advert for the progress made in that department as of late. There were so many outstanding goalkeeping performances at this tournament, with Ann-Katrin Berger's display for Germany in the quarter-final win over France particularly iconic amid a whole host of memorable moments across the event, too. Hannah Hampton's crucial double-save before England's equaliser against Italy was impressive, before Cata Coll enjoyed an even more impressive moment of that sort in Spain's semi-final win over Germany.

With eye-catching displays from Jennifer Falk, Lisa Lichtfus and Kinga Szemik also coming in the group stages especially, this was a tournament that showed how much goalkeeping in the women's game has improved now that those players are getting the support they deserve.

It's hard to know how to assess Norway's tournament. The Scandinavian nation can boast a star-studded squad that includes a Ballon d'Or winner, in Ada Hegerberg; a runner-up, in Caroline Graham Hansen; two more players with Champions League triumphs to their name, in Ingrid Engen and Frida Maanum; plus players such as Guro Reiten, who has been a stalwart of a Chelsea side that have dominated English football for the last six years. Yet, their aim at Euro 2025 was simply to get out of the group stage, having failed to do so at the last two editions of this tournament and underwhelmed at the World Cups that have taken place in between.

They did that, winning all three games in Group A. It was an important step for this Norway team to take, to banish some of the demons of the last few years and get back on track a little. However, it's still hard to come out of this tournament feeling encouraged and optimistic about a team that has an expectation level unrepresentative of the talent in the team. Norway didn't particularly entertain like many might've hoped in Switzerland, despite all the attacking quality at their disposal, and it feels like their quarter-final defeat to Italy was something of a missed opportunity, with a penalty missed in the narrow 2-1 loss.

The pieces are there for Norway to be a team that challenges for the biggest titles. Those were assembled a little more convincingly by Gemma Grainger at Euro 2025, as she got this team into the knockout stages in her first major tournament in charge, that must be said. But can they be put together better so that these world-class players can enjoy national team success on top of their club achievements? It still feels difficult to believe so right now. What Grainger can do in this role over the next two years will be interesting to monitor.

Despite both being eliminated in the group stage, this was a good summer for the two debutantes, in Poland and Wales. The former got to enjoy a historic first win at the Women's Euros, beating Denmark 3-2 in a thriller on matchday three, with captain and star striker Ewa Pajor able to add a major tournament goal to her glowing CV. Wales didn't get to celebrate a result quite like that, but they had two particularly big moments that will be long remembered by the incredible support that followed them to Switzerland. That both involved Jess Fishlock, too, was so fitting.

Fishlock is the greatest women's player Wales have ever produced. She is one of the best players in the history of the NWSL, the top-flight in the United States, and she has twice won the Champions League. With her country, she has also smashed plenty of records, with no man or woman having more caps or goals for Wales. The only thing missing was a major tournament.

After enduring so many heart-breaking failures and even contemplating retirement, not only did Fishlock get to tick that box this summer, she also managed to score Wales' first-ever goal at a major tournament on the women's side, becoming the oldest goal-scorer in competition history, and produced a wonderful run and pass to tee up Hannah Cain to find the back of the net against England, too. It was a delight to see this great champion, aged 38, finally getting to enjoy herself on such a stage.

There are not many players in the sport who have endured worse injury luck than Giulia Gwinn. Aged 26, she has endured two ACL tears, the second of which ruled her out of the 2023 Women's World Cup entirely. Fans could be forgiven, then, for fearing the worst when the Germany captain went down with a knee injury in the opening round of group games.

Fortunately, it wasn't an ACL tear, but it was a medial ligament injury severe enough to end Gwinn's tournament before it had even really started. Her absence was guaranteed to big one, given her status as captain as well as one of Germany's best players, but the impact of it was exacerbated by what followed, with red cards for Carlotta Wamser and Kathrin Hendrich, plus further injuries to Sarai Linder and Sophia Kleinherne, leaving the defence in tatters by the end of things.

Germany's run to the semi-finals was all the more remarkable given those setbacks, with the team making a strong start to life under new head coach Christian Wuck. But Gwinn will have hated watching from the sidelines as they succumbed to the narrowest of defeats to Spain in the last four. Hopefully, she is good to go when Bayern Munich's new season begins.

After breaking through the glass ceiling somewhat at the 2019 Women's World Cup, Italy have been incredibly disappointing in the last few major tournaments. At Euro 2022, they were a popular 'dark horse' pick, drawn in a group with France, Iceland and Belgium; however, they fell short of even reaching the knockout rounds. Similar happened a year later, when South Africa came from behind to defeat the Azzurre and progress from the group stages of the World Cup at their expense. That was an even more disappointing failure, one that led to a change of coach.

Under new boss Andrea Soncin, things have changed. Italy have been perhaps the most exciting national team in women's football in the last two years, consistently participating in goal-fests against the elite nations and often even winning them, with positive results against Spain, Germany and the Netherlands all under their belts in recent times. They felt like the perfect 'dark horse' pick - again.

There was some anxiety on show in the group stage, perhaps owing to recent failures. Opening with a nervy 1-0 win over Belgium, Portugal's late equaliser on matchday two meant Italy could fall at the first hurdle again. But they didn't. Despite a 3-1 loss to Spain, the Azzurre made it to the quarter-finals again for the first time at a major tournament since 2019 - and then went one better when they made the semis for the first time this century, beating Norway 2-1.

It all ended in tears against England, who Italy were just two minutes away from making it to the final. But there was so much for Soncin and his team to be proud of in Switzerland, and plenty to build on as they look to grow into a consistent contender at the latter stages of these tournaments.

Sweden's eight-year stint under Peter Gerhardsson has been consistently very good. Heading into Euro 2025, his team had reached the semi-finals of all four major tournaments they had played since his appointment in 2017, and the way they started in Switzerland had many wondering if this could be the summer in which Sweden finally turned that reliability into a title.

They were one of the most impressive performers in the group stage, which ended with a 4-1 thumping of Germany. Then, they were 2-0 up against England with little over 10 minutes to play in the quarter-finals. Was it finally Sweden's year? It would be fitting, given it was Gerhardsson's last tournament in charge and potentially the last for many of the squad, which was the oldest at Euro 2025.

Unfortunately, it all ended in tears. England fought back to take that last-eight tie to extra-time and, eventually, a penalty shootout would have to separate the pair. There, Sweden had two chances to win it, but both were spurned, and the reigning champions somehow progressed instead. Gerhardsson's tenure will be remembered fondly, there is no doubt about that, but it's a shame it returned no titles, with Sweden just never able to get over the line despite all their talent and experience.