Women’s Euro 2025 live: England hope to avoid scrap against rivals Wales in ‘must-win’ game – UK Times

Sarina Wiegman speaking ahead of England’s game against Wales at Euro 2025.

“I hope we will see a game where we have a lot of the ball and we play very good in possession, so we don’t let it become into a fighting game.

“I am not worried [it will become a fighting game]. I think Wales are very compact and they can fight and are really together but also when they have the ball they can play direct.

“We are trying to prevent that, and the best way is to be good on the ball yourself and move the ball quickly to exploit the spaces.

“For them it is a big game but for us it is too. We want to win and get through the group stage. There is passion but we have passion too. We want to be really focused and good on the ball. We have to be patient.”

Sarina Wiegman says England have to make sure their Euro 2025 derby against Wales does not become a “fighting game” and urged the Lionesses to focus on their own performance in order to reach the quarter-finals.

After beating the Netherlands 4-0 England can reach the quarter-finals with a win over rivals Wales, who are making their tournament debuts at the Euros and are the lowest-ranked side in the 16-team competition.

Wales are all-but out of the Euros and require a four-goal win in their final group game against England while also needing France to beat the Netherlands.

All 23 players in the England squad trained this morning in Zurich before travelling to St Gallen for their Euro 2025 match against Wales tomorrow evening.

In terms of team news, England made some key changes for the Netherlands game and looked to have found a settled formula with Lauren James on the right wing, Ella Toone in midfield and Jess Carter at centre-back. Sarina Wiegman could name an unchanged team in order to build some momentum and consistency.

Possible England XI: Hampton; Bronze, Williamson, Carter, Greenwood; Walsh, Stanway, Toone; James, Russo, Hemp

Sweden captain Kosovare Asllani scored one goal and made another as her side cruised into the knockout stages of the Euro 2025 with a 3-0 win over Poland on Tuesday that eliminated the Poles.

The win also guaranteed Germany’s berth in the last eight after they beat Denmark earlier on Tuesday, with the Danes joining Poland in exiting the competition.

The Germans and Swedes occupy the top two spots in Group C on six points and meet in Zurich on Saturday to decide who will win the group after Sweden’s aerial bombardment from the wings proved too much for the Polish defence.

Wales have been all-but eliminated from Euro 2025 after a 4-1 defeat to France in Group D.

Rhian Wilkinson’s side were put to the sword by Les Bleus in St Gallen, despite Jess Fishlock scoring her country’s first-ever goal at a major tournament.

Clara Mateo, Kadidiatou Diani, Amel Majri and Grace Geyoro bagged for France to leave Wales needing to beat England and manufacture a nine-goal swing in goal difference in Sunday’s final match.

Even if they can achieve that unlikely feat, they also need France to beat the Netherlands.

“I think off the back of that disappointing result, it was a bit more reinforced and sort of taking a step back and remembering why we’re here and how we all got here, the journeys that we’ve been on, we’ve touched on that a lot, coming into all the prep camps, we’ve all spoken about our journeys and what it feels like to be here.

“Sort of us going back and remembering all that, especially after that first game, that disappointment, it’s like, right, we’re here to win, we want to do that and I think that just shows the mentality of the group to be able to bounce back in the way that we did .

“This England want to show and I think it’s about like that fight in us.”

Chelsea forward Aggie Beever-Jones admits it can be difficult to ignore the “outside noise” as one of England’s buzziest new faces at the Women’s European Championship.

The 21-year old memorably netted a 30-minute hat-trick on her first senior start for the Lionesses at Wembley in late May, and she was a favourite of former Blues-turned-United States boss Emma Hayes, who predicted Beever-Jones would be “a legend not just for Chelsea but for England”.

England manager Sarina Wiegman handed Beever-Jones her major tournament debut in the 84th minute of the defending champions’ 4-0 group-stage triumph over the Netherlands on Wednesday, though many had hoped she would have been introduced a game sooner, in their 2-1 defeat to France.

England’s Lauren James is among the best players at Euro 2025 for creating “something special” and unlocking a game in a moment, team-mate Lucy Bronze has said.

James scored England’s opening goal in the 4-0 win over Netherlands with a powerful left-footed shot into the top corner and added a second after half-time as the Lionesses bounced back from their defeat to France.

The 23-year-old had been an injury doubt before the tournament due to a hamstring injury but was moved to the right wing against the Netherlands and sparked England’s big win with her opening goal.

In the aftermath of England’s opening defeat to France at Euro 2025, shell-shocked players were starting to realise the scale of the criticism that could come their way if they crashed out of the tournament after just two games. The criticism England received, and a lot of it came from within as well as from outside, meant there was nowhere to hide. “We finished the game against France and we got cameras and microphones shoved in our face telling us how bad we are,” said Lucy Bronze.

This is the new world the Lionesses have created, where their achievements in winning the Euros and reaching the World Cup final have rightly resulted in greater attention, but also greater scrutiny should they fall short of those standards. Even Sarina Wiegman admitted to feeling “tense” before facing the Netherlands, where defeat would have led to elimination.

This was what Georgia Stanway meant by “proper England”. This is why the squad keep saying those two words, as even Sarina Wiegman revealed after the game.

It isn’t necessarily a description, or any kind of old-fashioned appeal to the past. It’s a mantra, a standard. It’s about high intensity, not letting levels drop, and making sure the opposition feel the burn right until the very end of a game.

That was certainly true of the Netherlands, in a 4-0 defeat that might indeed prove a proper turning point in this entire Euro 2025 campaign. The defending champions have finally arrived, securing the tournament’s biggest win in any match that doesn’t feature Spain. That it was against a team as fancied as the Dutch, and with all of the storylines that were supposed to give this fixture such an edge, makes it all the more admirable.