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The big day is here - the Uefa Women's European Championships 2022 kicks off in just a few hours.

And the competition is expected to be a record breaker!

Tickets for the final of the competition at Wembley sold out within an hour of going on sale in March.

That means the tournament will host some of the biggest crowds ever seen at the Women's Euros.

With that in mind, here's what you need to know.

Host nation

Women's Euro 2022 is being held at 10 different stadiums in England from 6-31 July.

It was originally supposed to take place last year but was moved by 12 months because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

England will kick off this year's tournament against Austria at Old Trafford in Manchester. The final will take place at Wembley Stadium in London on 31 July.

The other stadiums hosting matches will be Brentford, Brighton, Leigh (Leigh Sports Village), Manchester City (Academy Stadium), Milton Keynes, Rotherham, Sheffield (Bramall Lane) and Southampton.

Record-breaking tournament

Tickets for the tournament final which will take place at Wembley Stadium sold out within AN HOUR of going on sale.

When completely full, Wembley can host 90,000 fans. The highest attendance for any Euros match - men or women - is 79,115 for the 1964 final at Real Madrid's Bernabeu stadium.

The current record attendance for a Women's European Championship final is 41,302, which was set at Euro 2013 when Germany beat hosts Sweden.

According to UEFA, more than over half a million tickets have been sold worldwide!

British interests

This is only the second time that England have hosted the tournament.

They've also never won the Euros, losing twice in the final - on penalties against Sweden after a two-legged final in 1984 and then 6-2 to Germany in 2009.

At the last tournament, held in 2017, England were knocked out in the semi-finals by the Netherlands.

However, since then, they've hired the manager of the team that beat them, Sarina Wiegman.

The Lionesses have also played really well in all their warm-up games, including a 5-1 win over... the Netherlands!

Since Wiegman became manager in September 2021, England are unbeaten and last month won the inaugural Arnold Clark Cup - a competition that also featured Olympic champions Canada, Euros favourites Spain and two-time world champions Germany.

Northern Ireland have also qualified for the tournament for the first time.

They are the lowest ranked team at Euro 2022, sitting as the 46th best team in the world.

Who are the favourites?

The top ranked team in the competition are Sweden, who sit as the second highest ranked country in the world.

In the past two years, Sweden have only lost once, on penalties to Canada in the Olympic final.

The Netherlands are the reigning champions. However, their winning manager, Sarina Wiegman, now manages England.

They'll hope goal-scoring machine Vivianne Miedema - who is the Dutch team's and Women's Super League's record scorer - fires them to victory.

However, the main favourites for Women's Euro 2022 are Spain.

Their squad features a large number of players from European champions Barcelona, including 2021 Ballon d'Or-winning midfielder Alexia Putellas and striker Jennifer Hermoso, who came second in the voting for the award.

No Russia

There are 16 teams taking part in the tournament but Russia were removed from the competition because of the country's invasion of Ukraine.

Uefa - who are the governing body running the tournament - have since announced that their spot will be taken by Portugal.

They will join the Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland in Group C.