‘It’s in our blood, our DNA’: Wales captain outlines desire to knock out England | OneFootball

The Wales captain, Angharad James, says it is in the players’ blood and DNA to want to knock England out of Euro 2025 as the sides prepare to meet in Sunday’s final Group D fixture.

England know victory would guarantee progress to the knockout stages and could go through without winning. Wales must win by at least a four-goal margin to have any hope of reaching the quarter-finals and need the Netherlands to lose to France.

James said “all the pressure is on England” as she appeared to attempt a few mind gameson Saturday. The midfielder made clear her first priority was Wales’s gameplan but then said: “As a Welshwoman, do you want to knock England out? Of course you do. It’s in our blood, our DNA, and the rivalry has always been there and always will be there.

“But you have to come back to the occasion and this is just another game of football. Hopefully we can perform in a better way than we did against France, keep improving our performances and the result comes with that.”

James spoke about how much of a motivating factor it was for Wales, at their first major women’s tournament, to be facing England: “There’s no hiding behind the history of Wales v England, whatever sport you are playing in. It’s a rivalry match and it’s one everyone wants to play in.

“As a group, we’ve come on so much since the first game [v the Netherlands], the second game was such a big improvement from us and we’re looking to step it up again in this game. But the pressure is all on England. They have to come out, they have to perform. They’re expected to win this game. Within our group we believe we can upset a very top team but we’re preparing as normal and we’re ready for the fight.”

Wales are the lowest-ranked team in the tournament and major underdogs in Group D, having been pitted against the defending champions, England, the 2017 champions, the Netherlands, and the 2022 semi-finalists France, but James believes they have taken unprecedented strides by qualifying for the finals in Switzerland.

“Before we came to this tournament, we said: ‘We have already won, whatever happens,’” she said. “We’ve had little wins at this tournament [such as] Jess [Fishlock] scoring our first goal, and a result tomorrow night would be our next ‘win’.

“It’s big for our nation, being here, showing all the little girls and boys at home that we can be on the biggest stage, can compete at the biggest stage, and we deserve to be here as a nation.”

The Wales head coach, Rhian Wilkinson, agreed and urged her team to try to cause an upset. “These women have fought so hard for so long to have this opportunity and I will not allow us to feel like we’re here just to participate,” she said. “For my women, we get to show up and spoil the party and that’s a wonderful job to have.”

The England defender Alex Greenwood responded to the assertion that all the pressure is on the Lionesses by saying: “It’s something we’re probably used to. That’s a pressure we’ve invited because we’ve been successful and we should be actually quite proud of. I think as a team we don’t really focus too much on that, we focus on ourselves and our gameplan and the objective.”

Sarina Wiegman said she wanted England to dominate possession and avoid “a fighting game”. The head coach also emphasised that the derby mattered to her team as well as to Wales.

“For us it’s a big game too because we have to win,” Wiegman said. “We want to get through the group and that’s on ourselves. Of course we’ve heard about rivalry and yeah, they [Wales] want to do really, really well, but we do too. And yeah, there’s passion, but we have passion too and we just want to play really well and play football. We want to be really good on the ball, be patient and break down the low block.”

Wiegman confirmed that all 23 of her players were available for the fixture and that she did not need to manage anyone’s minutes, implying that Lauren James is ready to play a full match after a hamstring injury that sidelined her from April to June.

Header image: [Photograph: Bernadett Szabó/Reuters]