The national champions and runners-up, where known, in nations that have participated in the past five years are listed as expected to compete. Some of these teams may choose not to participate. Norway has overtaken Iceland in the UEFA coefficients and thus assured themselves a second entry.
Countries are allocated places according to their UEFA league coefficient for women.[2] A first entry list was posted on 14 June 2012 by the Belgian representative.[3] Not returning since last year is the champion of Luxembourg, for the first time Montenegro sends its champion. Here CH denotes the national champion, RU the national runner-up.
1.^ On 6 December 2011 it was announced that the 2011 FA WSL Runners-up were given the spot,[4] and not as initially planned the 2011–12 FA Women's Cup winner.[5]
32 teams enter in the qualifying round, and were divided into eight groups of four teams, with one team from each seeding pot. The group-winners and best two runners-up qualify for the round of 32.
Seeding and draw
32 teams entered in the qualifying round, and were divided into eight groups of four teams, with one team from each seeding pot:[8]
The eight hosts were confirmed by UEFA before the draw, and two hosts could not be placed in the same group. Each team played the other teams in the group once. The matches were played between 11 and 16 August 2012. The draw was held on 28 June 2012.[9]
Tie-breaker criteria
As usual in UEFA competitions, three points are awarded for a win, and one point for a draw. If teams are equal on points after all matches have been played, the following criteria applies:
Higher number of points obtained in the matches among the teams in question.
Superior goal difference resulting from the matches among the teams in question.
Higher number of goals scored in the matches among the teams in question.
Superior goal difference in all group matches
Higher number of goals scored in all group matches
Higher number of club coefficient points
Drawing of lots
Criteria 1–3 are reapplied until the tie cannot be resolved; only then is criteria 4 used.
The two best runners-up also qualify for the round of 32. The match against the fourth-placed team in the group does not count for the purposes of the runners-up table. The tie-breakers in this ranking are:
Top scorers (excluding qualifying rounds and play-off round):
Top goalscorers
The top-scorer award is given to the player scoring the most goals including the qualifying rounds, thus Romanian player Laura Rus from Apollon Limassol won the award by scoring 11 goals up to the round of 32.[12] Conny Pohlers scored her 42nd goal in the competition history, to become the sole all-time topscorer.
The following are the top scorers excluding the qualifying round.