The European qualifying competition for the

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was a women's

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competition that determined the eight

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teams joining the automatically qualified hosts

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in the final tournament. Apart from France, 46 of the remaining 54 UEFA member national teams entered the qualifying competition, with

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making their World Cup qualification debut and

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making their competitive debut.

Format

The qualifying competition consisted of three rounds: *Preliminary round: The 16 lowest-ranked teams were drawn into four groups of four teams. Each group was played in single round-robin format at one of the teams which were pre-selected as hosts. The four group winners and the best runners-up (not counting results against the fourth-placed team) advance to the qualifying group stage. *Qualifying group stage: The 35 teams (30 highest-ranked teams and five preliminary round qualifiers) were drawn into seven groups of five teams. Each group was played in home-and-away round-robin format. The seven group winners qualify directly for the final tournament, while the four best runners-up (not counting results against the fifth-placed team) advance to the play-offs. *Play-offs: The four teams play two knockout rounds of home-and-away two-legged matches to determine the last qualified team from UEFA.

Tiebreakers

In the preliminary round and qualifying group stage, teams were ranked according to points (3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 points for a loss), and if tied on points, the following tiebreaking criteria were applied, in the order given, to determine the rankings (Regulations Articles 13.01, 13.02, and 15.01): #Points in head-to-head matches among tied teams; # Goal difference in head-to-head matches among tied teams; #Goals scored in head-to-head matches among tied teams; #''(Qualifying group stage only)''

Away goals The away goals rule is a method of tiebreaking in association football and other sports when teams play each other twice, once at each team's home ground. Under the away goals rule, if the total goals scored by each team are equal, the team that ...

scored in head-to-head matches among tied teams; #If more than two teams were tied, and after applying all head-to-head criteria above, a subset of teams was still tied, all head-to-head criteria above were reapplied exclusively to this subset of teams; #Goal difference in all group matches; #Goals scored in all group matches; #''(Qualifying group stage only)'' Away goals scored in all group matches; #''(Preliminary round only)''

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if only two teams have the same number of points, and they met in the last round of the group and were tied after applying all criteria above (not used if more than two teams have the same number of points, or if their rankings were not relevant for qualification for the next stage); #Disciplinary points (red card = 3 points, yellow card = 1 point, expulsion for two yellow cards in one match = 3 points); #UEFA coefficient for the preliminary round or qualifying group stage draw. To determine the best runner-up from the preliminary round and the four best runners-up from the qualifying group stage, the results against the teams in last place (fourth place in preliminary round and fifth place in qualifying group stage) were discarded. The following criteria were applied (Regulations Articles 13.03 and 15.02): #Points; #Goal difference; #Goals scored; #''(Qualifying group stage only)'' Away goals scored; #Disciplinary points; #UEFA coefficient for the preliminary round or qualifying group stage draw. In the play-offs, the team that scored more goals on aggregate over the two legs qualified for the final tournament. If the aggregate score was level, the

away goals rule The away goals rule is a method of tiebreaker, tiebreaking in association football and other sports when teams play each other twice, once at each team's home ground. Under the away goals rule, if the total goals scored by each team are equal, the ...

was applied, i.e., the team that scored more goals away from home over the two legs advances. If away goals were also equal,

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was played. The away goals rule was again applied after extra time, i.e., if there were goals scored during extra time and the aggregate score was still level, the visiting team advances by virtue of more away goals scored. If no goals were scored during extra time, the tie was decided by

penalty shoot-out The penalty shootout is a method of determining a winner in sports matches that would have otherwise been drawn or tied. The rules for penalty shootouts vary between sports and even different competitions; however, the usual form is similar to pe ...

(Regulations Article 17.01).

Schedule

The qualifying matches were played on dates that fell within the FIFA Women's International Match Calendar.

Entrants

The teams were ranked according to their coefficient ranking, calculated based on the following: *

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final tournament and qualifying competition (20%) *

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final tournament and qualifying competition (40%) * UEFA Women's Euro 2017 qualifying competition (40%) The 30 highest-ranked teams entered the qualifying group stage, while the 16 lowest-ranked teams entered the preliminary round. The coefficient ranking was also used for seeding in the preliminary round and qualifying group stage draws. ;Notes *Teams marked in bold qualified for the World Cup.

Preliminary round

Draw

The draw for the preliminary round was held on 19 January 2017, 13:30

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), at the UEFA headquarters in

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, Switzerland. The 16 teams were allocated into four seeding positions according to their coefficient ranking. They were drawn into four groups of four containing one team from each of the four seeding positions. First, the four teams which were pre-selected as hosts were drawn from their own designated pot and allocated to their respective group as per their seeding positions. Next, the remaining 12 teams were drawn from their respective pot which were allocated according to their seeding positions. ;Notes *Teams which were pre-selected as preliminary round hosts were denoted by (H). *Teams marked in bold advanced from preliminary round to qualifying group stage.

Groups

Group 1

Group 2

Group 3

Group 4

Ranking of second-placed teams

To determine the best second-placed teams from the preliminary round which advance to the qualifying group stage, only the results of the second-placed teams against the first and third-placed teams in their group were taken into account, while results against the fourth-placed team were not included. As a result, two matches played by each second-placed team were counted for the purposes of determining the ranking.

Qualifying group stage

Draw

The draw for the qualifying group stage was held on 25 April 2017, 13:30

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), at the UEFA headquarters in

, Switzerland. The 35 teams were allocated into five seeding pots according to their coefficient ranking, with the five preliminary round qualifiers placed in Pot E. They were drawn into seven groups of five containing one team from each of the five seeding pots. For political reasons, Russia and Ukraine would not be drawn in the same group. ;Notes *Teams marked in bold qualified for the final tournament as group winners. *Teams marked in ''italics'' advanced to the play-offs as four best runners-up. *Teams which advanced from preliminary round to qualifying group stage were denoted by (P).

Groups

Group 1

Group 2

Group 3

Group 4

Group 5

Group 6

Group 7

Ranking of second-placed teams

To determine the four best second-placed teams from the qualifying group stage which advanced to the play-offs, only the results of the second-placed teams against the first, third and fourth-placed teams in their group were taken into account, while results against the fifth-placed team were not included. As a result, six matches played by each second-placed team were counted for the purposes of determining the ranking.

Play-offs

Draw

Matches

Play-off semi-finals

Play-off final

Qualified teams

The following nine teams from UEFA qualified for the final tournament, including France which qualified as hosts. :

¹ Bold indicates champions for that year. ''Italic'' indicates hosts for that year.

Top goalscorers

''For full lists of goalscorers, see sections in each group:'' *

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References

External links