“Complacency is just the biggest mistake you could make,” says Wiegman ahead of England’s Euro 2025 semi-final | OneFootball

England manager Sarina Wiegman and midfielder Georgia Stanway spoke to the media ahead of England’s UEFA Women’s Euro 2025 semi-final against Italy tomorrow.

Having needed a penalty shootout to scrape past Sweden in the quarter-finals, England will now face what is – theoretically, at least – an easier challenge in the Azzurre.

But while plenty of her players appeared battered and bruised following that victory, the full England squad trained on Monday and Wiegman explained that “it looks like we will have a full squad tomorrow.”

The most concerning injury was that sustained by captain Leah Williamson, who had to come off with an ankle problem – but Wiegman reassured fans that the Arsenal defender looks to be fit enough to play.

“[Her resilience and determination] says she really wants to play, and she did everything to recover as well as possible, she has so she could be training today, and when she recovers well, she’s available tomorrow.”

Stanway added: “She’s our captain. We would like her on the pitch as much as possible. She leads in communication and in performance, so to have her on the pitch is obviously what England needs.”

On Monday, a multitude of statements were published racial abuse suffered by Jess Carter throughout the tournament. The England squad have had several meetings on the topic, and Stanway revealed: “I think if anything, it’s probably brought us together as a team. There are some things that we will never be able to understand and that’s one of those. We need to cut it out of society, we need to cut it out of football, and of course we don’t have the steps that it takes in order for that to happen, but right now, all we can do is be united in what we want to make sure is right.”

“I think the most important thing is Jess has the power to be able to do that [try and galvanise action]. She doesn’t have the power on her own. She has the power of the Lionesses, of us as players, as staff, as the whole of the FA. So it might sound like one person’s fighting this battle, but you never know how many people are actually behind her and standing with her. That’s the beauty of football, is that if we want to make change, we do it as a collective and as a collective we’ll be more powerful.”

Stanway was asked if this situation makes it harder to want to wear an England shirt. The Bayern Munich midfielder’s answer was clear. “To us, the people that are being abusive, saying these things, [and] doing things like this, they are not fans. I believe that people like that don’t deserve to be called fans,” she explained, “so it makes absolutely no difference to us putting that shirt on because we know that we’re wearing it for the people that we stand next to, our families, the actual fans that are here to watch the games and enjoy the game.”

Earlier this week, Beth Mead spoke about the squad’s ability to be vulnerable with each other bringing the team closer.  Stanway agrees with her teammate, adding: “I think being vulnerable is probably one of the most important things, because it brings the group so much closer together. I think when times are tough on the pitch, you want to be able to rely on your teammate, and you want to be able to look at them in both good and bad, and understand that you’re both on the right journey, and you’re both on the right path to exactly what you want at the end, which is to win. We’ve talked a lot about vulnerability, and we’ve talked a lot about opening our arms up and recognising who’s next to us, and having the belief in the people that are next year and not the people that aren’t in the bubble.”

Returning the focus to Tuesday’s semi-final, Wiegman says: “I think it would be disrespectful to Italy to think that we are the favourites. They made the semi-final just like we did, and it’s very impressive for any team that makes the semi-final. Complacency is just the biggest mistake you could make. We’ve seen them all. You’ve seen them all, how they played. We have to be at our very, very best to win the game.”

England’s UEFA Women’s Euro 2025 semi-final against Italy gets underway in Geneva on Tuesday, with kick-off at 20:00 BST [21:00 CEST].