UEFA Women's EURO 2017 - England are on the up, Scotland achievements are remarkable

England’s Lionesses head off to the Netherlands with a fanfare – and a social media campaign saluting them, spearheaded by girl band Little Mix.

Mark Sampson is convinced that his team can win the tournament – and such talk is all a far cry from where they were even a decade or so ago. Before the FA put in some real money to the England set-up, players weren’t fully professional, taking time off their real jobs to compete at international level, and running around in too-large men’s kits that looked both comical and sad.

With the FA Women’s Super League now well established and the England team used to hitting the headlines following their bronze medal in the 2015 Women’s World Cup, women’s football in England seems to be on the up under Sampson.

It would be an error to attribute all the success to him, though. He benefits from a system that is essentially designed around improving the England team’s standards – but also from the groundwork laid by former coach Hope Powell. She basically oversaw the entire set-up, from junior level upwards, until she left her role after the last European Championships; and she had spent over a decade lobbying for more funding and more support for the women’s game.

Sampson’s way of working is certainly intriguing. He picked his squad back in April, a full three months prior to the tournament, and before the Women’s Super League Spring Series kicked off. He dismissed any idea that he would miss out on players enjoying a great run of form domestically, saying at the time that they had had two years to prove themselves to him.

A great one for soundbites and mottos, Sampson is fond of talking of his competition “team of 23”, emphasising the importance of the group dynamic, putting the collective over and above everything else. That could be one reason why his squad seems so short of strikers. The WSL’s top-scoring English striker, Chelsea’s Eniola Aluko, does not get anywhere near the squad any more, and has publicly said she doesn’t expect to – there are midfielders like the rangy Jill Scott who can move up front, or wingers like Karen Carney who can play more centrally.

Meanwhile, north of the border, Scotland venture out for their first major tournament under the stewardship of the shrewd Anna Signeul. Considering the lack of a professional league in the country, and the subsequent diaspora of top Scottish players across the globe, their achievements are remarkable.

They will be without three of their biggest stars due to injury, though; Arsenal’s Kim Little damaged her knee ligaments in training, her clubmate Emma Mitchell has a hamstring pull, and Manchester City’s Jen Beattie has an ankle knock.

Apart from that, their preparation has not been ideal, with an industrial dispute that dragged on; though full details were never released publicly, the players refused to take part in any promotional work until the issues were resolved. It all got sorted out at the end of June, with the Scottish FA mentioning that the problems centred on “commercial and operational elements”, and the squad adding that they thought the agreement made was a major step towards equality with their male counterparts.

Intriguingly, after being drawn in the same group, these two old rivals clash in their first match of Euro 2017; though England-Scotland might not have the same needle as one might expect in the men’s game, this is going to be a fascinating, fierily-fought encounter.