Favourites aim for finals return

Only one UEFA WOMEN'S EURO 2009™ qualifying group contains two teams that played in the 2005 finals in England, and both have a fine tradition in this competition.

Rematch
Sweden and Italy are the top two seeds in Group 2, which also includes the Republic of Ireland and Hungary - who meet in the opener on 1 April - plus preliminary round winners Romania. Last year Sweden fell at the semi-final stage while Italy went out in their group, but they did meet in qualifying; Sweden won 5-0 at home in May 2003 but the following year Italy came from behind for a 2-1 victory.

'A good group'
In that competition Marika Domanski-Lyfors was Sweden coach. She now runs the Under-23 side and is intrigued by the draw. "I think it is quite a good group," she told uefa.com. "Some of the other groups are a little bit stronger, some weaker. Sweden and Italy will be the teams that will fight for first place if everything goes as we hope. It will be an even fight for third."

Italy concern
In the four competitions that preceded 2005, Sweden and Italy were each runners-up twice. Italy, unlike Sweden, have never been continental champions, and results have tended to go against them in recent years, a concern as they have never finished outside the top eight European teams but in FIFA Women's World Cup qualifying ended behind both Norway and Ukraine in their group. That could leave a chance for the others, most notably Ireland who are improving fast, as was seen in May when they lost just 1-0 in Germany, the same scoreline by which Italy beat them in a friendly three months ago.

Irish aim
Manager Noel King said: "Obviously you have to play a first seed so you are going to play someone that's powerful. We got two teams who are powerful: Sweden, who are world-renowned for it and Italy who are very strong as well and were in the last European finals. We were fourth last time so in terms of progressing we want to try and finish third. If we reached the play-offs it would be sensational. We have played Romania before, we don't know Hungary. But we've a lot of young players coming up; whether we mature quickly enough remains to be seen."

Romanian rise
Hungary were bottom of their World Cup group, but after the shock of losing 13-0 at home to England improved and only went down 2-0 in the return. Romania were in the second division of teams and finished runners-up in Group 7. However, in the new preliminary round they defeated Bulgaria, Azerbaijan and Estonia to earn a return to the highest level for the first time since the 1997 edition.