The Malta women's national team will face Italy and Denmark in the upcoming 2021 UEFA Women's European Championship qualifications, following the preliminary draw held at the UEFA Headquarters in Nyon, on Thursday.
#WEURO2021 qualifying draw in full ... matches run from 28 August 2019 until 22 September 2020: group winners & 3 best runners-up straight to finals alongside hosts England, other 6 runners-up play off in October 2020 for remaining 3 berths???? https://t.co/g64veBMwGb pic.twitter.com/ymeGLot1hP
— #WEURO2021 (@UEFAWomensEURO) 21 February 2019
Led by Mark Gatt, the Maltese side will play in Group B alongside Italy (Pot 1), Denmark (Pot 2), Bosnia-Herzegovina (Pot 3), Israel (Pot 4) and Georgia (Pot 5).
This will be the first time that Malta and Italy will cross swords in a qualifier while Denmark were paired with the national team in the 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup qualifications.
Moreover, the Danes were finalists in the previous European Championship where they lost 4-2 at the hands of hosts Netherlands.
Meanwhile, Malta already faced the three other teams in previous competitions - Bosnia in the 2005 Women's Euro qualifiers, Israel in the 2015 Women's World Cup preliminaries while in the 2017 European qualifiers they had defeated Georgia 2-1.
Malta fixtures:
- August 28, Denmark vs Malta
- September 3, Bosnia vs Malta
- October 4, Malta vs Italy
- November 7, Malta vs Israel
- November 12, Italy vs Malta
- March 5 2020, Malta vs Georgia
- March 10 2020, Malta vs Bosnia
- April 13 2020, Malta vs Denmark
- June 3 2020, Georgia vs Malta
- June 9 2020, Israel vs Malta
Qualification format
- The group winners and the three runners-up with the best record against the sides first, third, fourth and fifth in their sections will join hosts England in the final tournament.
- The other six runners-up will play off in October 2020 for the remaining three berths in the 16-team finals to be held the following summer.