England Women captain Leah Williamson said the Lionesses “weren’t good enough” as they lost their Euros 2025 opener to France.
England were the first defending champions to lost their opening game of a following tournament, beaten 2-1 by the impressive French in Zurich.
There were various issues in the Lionesses game, including defending on both wings that led to goals from Marie-Antoinette Katoto and Sandy Baltimore.
Reflecting on the reasons behind England’s below-par performance, Williamson told ITV Sport: “We lost a game. Cheap defending one-vs-one. Not good enough. We couldn’t keep it in the areas we needed to keep it.
“We learned from those mistakes in fairness and grew into the game, but on the ball we were not good enough. We got better as they tired, we took advantage of that, but not enough.
England’s Lucy Bronze and Williamson react after England conceded against France at the Women’s Euros 2025
“Sometimes that happens, the positive is that I’ve not seen us like that in terms of turning the ball over so much for a while now. It’s really frustrating, I think that’s how we take it, but tomorrow we are back on it.
“I think everybody takes responsibility for themselves today, have a look what was the area that they could have had an impact on the game more.
“I will, but I think then tomorrow we have a new game plan, different spaces available, different type of opposition.”
Wiegman: We played ourselves out of the game
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England women’s head coach Sarina Wiegman says she’s disappointed with her side’s Euro 2025 opening defeat to France and admits the group will need to move on from the result.
For her part, England head coach Sarina Wiegman did not believe the defending down either wing was England’s biggest issue, adding that overall sloppiness also contributed to the result.
She told ITV Sport: “I’m very disappointed about the result. I thought we started really well, scored a goal and unfortunately, it didn’t count.
“Then we played ourselves out of the game by playing short passes, which really helped them and not being tight enough. We needed to get out of that first press and skip and I think that harmed us a bit.
France’s Marie-Antoinette Katoto scores the opening goal
“The wide areas were not the biggest problem. We started really well and then we started playing short passes, and that’s what they wanted, because they wanted to press. So we needed to get in behind them and try to skip the press, but we lost. We were too sloppy and that didn’t help us – it helped them.
“Then we know how good they are in the counter-attack. They are powerful and fast players. That’s what they did really well.”
England must now win their next Group D game against the Netherlands on Wednesday to keep themselves in the running for a spot in the knockout rounds.
France’s Sandy Baltimore scores her side’s second goal against England
Wiegman knows her side can not afford any more mistakes, but must move on quickly with another game in four days.
“I think we can do better,” she added. “France are really good but we caused a bit of our own problems and and we could have scored in the first minutes.
“We can do better, definitely, and we have to make it a little bit easier for ourselves. We can’t afford to make any more mistakes going forward? That’s correct.
“Those are the facts, we have to step up, and tomorrow we review, we recover, and then it’s straight to the game against the Netherlands on Wednesday. Now we must stick together, do the recovery and move on.”
Bonadei surprised by England approach
France head coach Laurent Bonadei, who took over the team last year from former coach Herve Renard, said his team were surprised by England’s approach.
“England are a really good team,” he said. “They are fifth in the world rankings and won the last Euros so we have to respect this team.
“They started really well and put pressure on us from kick-off. We were a little bit surprised because normally they play with build-up from Keira Walsh in midfield so it was really hard because we were under pressure, and we conceded. Luckily for us it was ruled out.
“Then slowly, step by step, we came back with our forward players and had our fantastic goal on the right-hand side. Physically, it was not easy for the England team because we played more direct in midfield. We kept calm and scored a second goal.
“In the second half, we controlled the game because they only had two shots on target. At the end of the game, you could see England could score at any time and we played under pressure for the last five minutes. My players did really well and kept the result.”
