Luxembourg and F.Y.R. Macedonia both face difficult introductions to competitive senior women's football after being paired with countries who have enjoyed recent success in the 2009 UEFA European Women's Championship preliminary round.
Group winners
At the draw at UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Luxembourg drew Lithuania, Malta and a Slovakia side who topped one of the second division groups in the recent qualifying campaign for the FIFA Women's World Cup in Group 3. Wales were also pool winners, and will be favourites to progress from Group 5 alongside the Macedonians, Kazakhstan and the Faroe Islands. The other newcomers Azerbaijan are in Group 4, a mini-tournament to be hosted by Romania.
Hosts Finland
Twenty teams were split into five sections of four sides for matches to be played between 18 and 23 November, with the winners moving into the group stage draw on 13 December, along with the top 25 ranked nations, other than hosts Finland who qualify automatically for the 12-team finals.
Preliminary round draw
| Group 1 (hosts in bold) | | Croatia | | Northern Ireland | | Georgia | | Turkey |
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| Group 2 | | Israel | | Bosnia-Herzegovina | | Latvia | | Armenia |
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| Group 3 | | Slovakia | | Malta | | Luxembourg | | Lithuania |
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| Group 4 | | Romania | | Estonia | | Azerbaijan | | Bulgaria |
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| Group 5 | | Wales | | Kazakhstan | | Faroe Islands | | F.Y.R. Macedonia |
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