July 17 – England’s players and their manager Sarina Wiegman have warned not to underestimate quarter-final opponents Sweden, who have enjoyed a perfect EURO 2025 so far.
Three years ago, at EURO 2022, England cruised past Sweden 4-0 in the semi-finals en route to the European title, but in Switzerland, the Swedish topped their group ahead of Germany – extending a unbeaten record that dates back to December 2023 in all competitions.
“It is a very nice memory to look back on, but it’s two different teams,” said England defender Lucy Bronze. “Sweden are a team that do really well in tournaments and I can’t imagine they are focused on one game that they lost against England many years ago.”
“It’s very hard to predict the outcome,” added Wiegman. “They have had a very good group stage, but we are in a very good place too.”
England regrouped after an opening defeat against France to hammer both the Netherlands and Wales and ensure their progress from the group stages.
“Coming off the back of the French game, having a lot of talking points actually brought the team closer together,” said Bronze. “We are not too focused on noises about other teams.”
“I think you saw that in the two performances that came after. We’re not focused too much on noises around other teams or ourselves. We’re only focused on what we do on the training pitch, what we do in games, how we recover, how we perform and how we lift each other up.”
Alongside England and France, Sweden are the only country to have reached the last eight in all five major tournaments since 2017. They have won bronze at the last two World Cups and silver at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.
Even so, they flew under the radar at EURO 2025 until they defeated Germany 4-1 in their final group match. Previously, England captain Leah Williamson said that “they deserve a little bit more recognition.”
Sweden are on a high and they believe they have what it takes to eliminate the reigning European champions and set up a semi-final against Italy, who eliminated Norway 2-1 on Wednesday.
“We respect England, the team they have and everything they have achieved so far. But fear? No. We don’t have the word fear in our dictionary,” said Sweden forward Kosovare Asllani.
“We look up the word courage. Of course, you have to respect one of the best sides in the world, but we have the perfect gameplan for this match. We want to achieve the football we want to represent. In our minds there is only one outcome and that is to win the game.”
Contact the writer of this story, Samindra Kunti, at moc.l1752764607labto1752764607ofdlr1752764607owedi1752764607sni@i1752764607tnuk.1752764607ardni1752764607mas1752764607