England face Sweden in semi-finals of Women's Euro 2022
Jul 26, 2022
Sheffield [UK], July 26 : England take on Sweden in the semi-finals of Women's Euro 2022 on Tuesday here at Bramall Lane and the hosts will be looking to seal the spot in the finals of the competition for the first time since 2009.
"The England team is ready to play their best game tomorrow against Sweden, and hopefully we inspire the nation," said England Manager Sarina Wiegman in a pre-match press conference.
England, the hosts of the tournament, have the support of the fans which can be a huge factor in high-intensity games.
"I hope the fans are going to bring us lots of energy again. We'll do that ourselves, but it was really an extra thing, an extra dimension, what we got in our last games, and that's really exciting. We hope we're going to make them proud again," she added.
Earlier in the quarterfinals, England squeezed past Spain 2-1 in a close game thanks to the winner from Stanway in the extra time.
"We had a little setback, of course that's part of the game too, conceding a goal, but we stayed calm, we stayed trying to play our game and then the result came. I think we're really strong and we can handle some setbacks," said Wiegman.
"I think going through that and being that successful...really helped the team and really showed our resilience and it's a big step in our development," she added.
Looking forward to the game against Sweden, Weigman added, "I think it is going to be a very tight game. We know they have performed really well over the last years, they have always performed really well in the women's game, they are No 2 in the FIFA ranking."
"It's going to be a difficult game, I think totally different to what we had against Spain, because they have a different style of play. But we're prepared," she continued.
England have had a great competition so far conceding only a single goal and scoring 20 goals so far in the tournament.
Meanwhile, an extra-time strike by Linda Sembrant helped Sweden set up a Euro 2022 semi-final clash with England following a win over Belgium 1-0 in the quarterfinal last Friday.
The winner of the game between England and Sweden will face the winner of the match between Germany and France.