Early loss vs France brought team together: England coach Wiegman

If England’s opening loss to France at Euro 2025 was a cause for concern, coach Sarina Wiegman said being faced with a huge challenge right out of the gate might have been a blessing in disguise for the reigning champions.

Wiegman’s team bounced back to beat the Netherlands 4-0 in a must-win match and then thrashed tournament debutants Wales 6-1 on Sunday -- and now ride a confident wave of togetherness into their quarter-final match against Sweden.

“We didn’t have a good start against France, but that gave us also the urgency to fix, to do things better as a team on the pitch, getting the connections better,” Wiegman said. “With that loss, the urgency came.

“The team really responded well on that, and now hopefully we can show that again against Sweden. We built momentum also from the France game, because that really brought us together.”

Sweden, who lost to England in the semi-finals at Euro 2022, were barely challenged in this year’s group stage, winning all three of their games by a combined score of 8-1.

England finished second in their group, which means, provided they get past Sweden in the quarters, they will avoid world champions Spain in the semi-finals.

Wiegman played down the idea that England may have benefited by not winning the group.

“I think that in tournaments, that’s really tricky to think, ‘Oh, we want to go that way, because, then we might have this and this’,” Wiegman said. “If you start thinking like that, that’s very tricky. You’re trying to just win every game, and then see where you finish in the group, and then you play who’s in front of you.

“If you want to be successful in the tournament, you should be able to win every single game. So that’s how we approach it.”

The celebratory England crowd at Arena St Gallen on Sunday periodically broke into a song about Wiegman, who has won 14 of the 15 European Championship games she has coached.

Singing to the famous 1958 tune by The Champs, every time the song loudly exclaims “Tequila!” the supporters yelled “Sarina!”

“It’s really nice,” Wiegman said, looking slightly red-faced at the question. “Doesn’t make me feel really comfortable. But yeah, they were creative, I clapped a little bit for them. I hope they can sing a lot still over the next weeks.”

Wiegman’s team take on Sweden on Thursday in Zurich.

Wales coach issues plea for better opportunities: Wales coach Rhian Wilkinson issued a passionate plea for more sports opportunities for girls and women after thrashing by England laid bare the vast difference in experience and opportunities between the neighbouring nations.

“It gives me the opportunity to put out a call to action,” Wilkinson said. “What I would say first is that there are no excuses. This is absolutely a thorough and deserved win by England and by their coaching staff and how they were set up and some of their movements were fantastic.

“The next stage is that I need to get back to Wales, and I need to keep making sure that across our country, we continue to push opportunity for our young girls for all sport.”

Wilkinson spoke about how, after England’s Euro 2022 victory, Lionesses defender Lotte Wubben-Moy spearheaded a campaign with an open letter from the team to the government demanding equal access to school football for girls.

The campaign was largely deemed a success with the UK government implementing measures to ensure girls have the same opportunities at school as boys.

“This is a time in the world with a lot happening, I’m a football manager, I can’t speak too much, but I will say that giving equal opportunity to our young girls has got to be something that we continue to push for,” Wilkinson said.

The coach pointed to a huge gap in playing opportunities between countries, comparing Wales’ situation to her own experience of growing up in Canada but having to go to the US to develop as a player.

“We get them on a FIFA window for 10 days,” she said. “My players have to be playing. I have five players out of contract here, it is mind blowing to me. Esther Morgan starts all of our games and she doesn’t have a club. It drives me wild. I’ve got to try and find them opportunities abroad.”

Agencies