‘Proper England’ mentality can help them get past Sweden

England’s women are banking on their “proper England” mentality to come through a testing quarter-final against Sweden at Euro 2025 on Thursday.

The defending champions credited their resurgent performances, including a 4-0 victory over the Netherlands, to rediscovering their identity following a disappointing 2-1 loss to France in their opening match at the European Championship.

“Proper England is who we are and what we want to show and of course it has to do with our tactics, how we want to play, but also our behaviours, how we want to support each other together, work really hard, and, of course, play to our strengths too,” England coach Sarina Wiegman said at a press conference on Wednesday.

“When we do that, I think the chance of winning is the highest.”

Defender Lucy Bronze, who at 33 is England’s oldest player, said the term was a throwback to a time when the team was not among the world’s best.

“We’re a new team, we have a lot of new players who have very different experiences of playing for England compared to the likes of myself, where we knew that England used to have to dig deep all the time,” said Bronze, who is playing in her seventh major tournament.

“Like 2015 was the first time we beat Germany. That’s insane to think of right now. But England in the past, it was you have to dig out performances and you are maybe the underdog, you’re not the favourite,” she added.

“Whereas this England team has developed, obviously, we’re a very talented team, a lot of technical ability, tactics, all that comes in the game. But we don’t want to ever forget that we are proper England, and if push comes to shove, we can win a game in any means possible.”

England are in for a tough encounter against a Swedish team that have not lost a game in more than a year, and cruised to three victories in the group stage. England and Sweden drew their two most recent matches against each other in Euro qualifying last year.

But Bronze said that confidence was high after their 6-1 thrashing of Wales, and at Wednesday’s training her teammates were eager for the tournament’s knockout stage to get going.

“Any player in the world wants to play in the big games, I think it’s the most exciting quarter-final, both teams are talented,” Bronze said.

“We knew that coming into the quarter-final that it was going to be against a tough team. All the girls are really excited about what tomorrow is going to bring.”