England and Germany are well placed to put paid to their current FIFA rankings to reach the Women's Euro 2022 final, according to coach and analyst Lisa Fallon.
Both teams are ranked lower than their respective semi-final opponents.
Hosts England, eighth in the world, take on second-ranked Sweden in the first of the semis tonight in Sheffield before Germany (5th) meet France (3rd) on Wednesday night at Milton Keynes' stadium, with both fixtures live on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player from 7.30pm.
But speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, Fallon feels rankings will go out the window when it comes to the respective head-to-heads.
"What's most interesting and what people probably wouldn't realise is that England are actually the lowest ranked team of the four semi-finalists," she said.
"Sweden are the highest ranked team but possibly the most underwhelming team that we've seen so far.
"But there is a lot hype obviously around England who were very impressive in the group stages and had to dig very deep to come from behind against Spain in the quarter-final which was their first test.
"So they're going to get another test today against Sweden who you will expect will perform a little bit better than they did in the tournament so far. Sometimes you need to grow into a tournament."
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But Fallon does not expect Sweden to have grown enough into the tournament to deny England a home final.
"Based on Sweden's performances so far, I would actually expect England to win because Sweden have been underwhelming and they have had some Covid issues within the camp and it'll be interesting to see what players are available this evening because they did miss a couple for the last game," she said.
"Sweden will have a huge support there and their supporters are amazing but I do think England have enough to win and I think it could be an England-Germany final in Wembley which I think would be a mouth-watering prospect for us all."
Germany will need to overcome an in-form French side if they are to join the Three Lionesses in Sunday's decider.
"Both of them have been hugely impressive. France saw off the Netherlands who were the reigning champions coming into this tournament," said Fallon.
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"But for me I'm not sure if France have really been tested defensively. The Netherlands were excellent out of possession in that game but I was really disappointed with them in possession. I didn't think they asked enough questions of France.
"But Germany, for me, have been the team that have really had to win in different ways and shown a capacity to win in different ways.
"And funnily enough, of all those teams four teams who all would have been talked about coming into the tournament, Germany were the ones who were least talked about and I think they're quite bemused by that. So I've a feeling that Germany are looking on paper the strongest of the four. The team that wins this tournament will really deserve to win it."
Watch the Euro 2022 semi-finals, England v Sweden on Tuesday and Germany v France on Wednesday, with RTÉ Sport. Live television and streaming on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player with news and a live blog on RTÉ News app and on rte.ie/sport.
