The key England switch that sparked a turning point at Women’s Euro 2025 | OneFootball

This was what Georgia Stanway meant by “proper England”. This is why the squad keep saying those two words, as even Sarina Wiegman revealed after the game.

It isn’t necessarily a description, or any kind of old-fashioned appeal to the past. It’s a mantra, a standard. It’s about high intensity, not letting levels drop, and making sure the opposition feel the burn right until the very end of a game.

That was certainly true of the Netherlands, in a 4-0 defeat that might indeed prove a proper turning point in this entire Euro 2025 campaign. The defending champions have finally arrived, securing the tournament’s biggest win in any match that doesn’t feature Spain. That it was against a team as fancied as the Dutch, and with all of the storylines that were supposed to give this fixture such an edge, makes it all the more admirable.

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Stanway and the Lionesses got their ‘proper England’ performance (Getty)

This, amid so many words, is an appropriate statement. The revelation of a proper England has certainly washed away words like “elimination”, and ignored the possibility of becoming the first ever champions to be knocked out in the group stage. Similarly, the only humiliation here was endured by the Netherlands.

By the early minutes of the second half, and Lauren James’ second goal, it seemed preposterous to think that the Dutch were considered England’s peers or that they might actually subject Wiegman’s team to the threat of elimination. They couldn’t get close.

What a way to blow away doubts. They went with James’ emphatic first strike, as England’s star had her own arrival performance at the Euros, blowing away any doubts about her role in the squad, too.

It’s hard not to feel that the two are linked, which is where “proper England” might even take on a deeper meaning.

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James scored twice after Wiegman moved her to right wing (Getty)

While Wiegman’s general approach is always to adapt tactics to the opposition, she has clearly figured out a core formation that works. She has something proper there.

Putting James out wide means you enjoy all of the advantages of her mercurial quality, but aren’t affected by a certain languid self-indulgence. You can carry her, so that she then delivers. This is the thing with James. It’s worth waiting for that moment. Here, she had two, while England’s midfield just had so much more intensity.

It’s not even like she needs to be in the centre, given how she drifts. That was the source of the goal, James eventually coming in after Hannah Hampton’s supreme long-range pass, to drive the ball into the top corner.

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James scored England’s opener with a brilliant finish into the top corner (Getty)

An uncharitable view might be that it makes the formation against France seem all the more absurd. It does nevertheless speak to a team that had to find itself a bit, and find its feet.

This was why the clarity that resulted from that defeat might have been so important.

Now that England finally had this emphatic 4-0 win, Wiegman could admit that she had “felt a little tension” beforehand. She said the fall-out from France was “hard”, and “the consequences of the result were huge”.

The England manager, for her part, responded with decisiveness: proper Wiegman. She essentially decided the formation in the immediate aftermath of the French defeat. That fitted with the focus the players felt. They weren’t just words. There was a clarity.

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Wiegman made key changes to respond from the France defeat (Getty)

It came across in every aspect of the performance. From the very start, England penned the Dutch right in, intercepting all passes 30 yards from goal. This wasn’t happening in the France match.

It was the set-up for more. Crucially, James wasn’t the only key player to enjoy “a moment”. This felt like an arrival performance of Hampton’s own, as she displayed on the European stage just why Wiegman so values her footwork. Jess Carter was imperious in the centre, after a torrid night out wide on Saturday. Stanway scored maybe the pick of the goals. She caught it beautifully. That has a psychological importance, as she recovers her fitness.

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Stanway also bounced back from a poor performance by delivering for England (Getty)

Russo didn’t score but was player of the match, her running creating the space for those four goals. Ella Toone duly crowned her own inclusion with the goal that turned a convincing win into a rout.

That is maybe the slight caveat in all of this.

What does it say about these Euros that the Dutch were supposed to be one of the six good sides, that made this “the group of death”, were so bad? It wasn’t just that England beat them convincingly, but how supine they became. That sort of drop shouldn’t happen.

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England’s 4-0 win means a victory against Wales should be enough to reach the quarter-finals (Getty)

The Netherlands had no pace, and didn’t seem to be able to cope with England’s intensity or directness. They afforded Keira Walsh the freedom of the centre.

Wiegman had said the word “gameplan” almost as much as her players said “proper England” in the press before the game and, amusingly, it now seems like she actually just gave it away. The manager spoke of how she wanted to exploit the space the Dutch leave behind, and repeated it after the game, with her team having done exactly that.

It was like Andries Jonker’s team couldn’t even conceive this might be possible.

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The Netherlands were outplayed (Getty)

That isn’t England’s problem, though. They did what they had to do, following a build-up where they could have been perceived as playing themselves as much as the Dutch.

The only concern right now might be over this propensity to yo-yo, and go back and forth in terms of performance.

Wales shouldn’t really pose such difficulty, though, with all due respect. England should win there, and the state of the table should mean any victory is enough to send them into a quarter-final with either Germany or Sweden, with the bonus of perhaps avoiding Spain in any semi-final.

The France-Wales match did actually start up on a screen at the end of Wiegman’s press conference, the manager laughing as she talked about how it was time to end it so she could go and watch. She arched her head to watch Wales’ surprise equaliser for 1-1, declaring “lovely”.

That couldn’t last. England’s time in Switzerland, however, looks set to last much longer. It finally looks like a proper tournament campaign.