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The England fans in Zurich have a new favourite song, replacing the word “Tequila!” with “Sarina!” It is a fun twist on a 1950s number from The Champs, written by the American saxophonist Chuck Rio. If the band’s name is fitting, for a few more days at least, for England’s status as defending champions, by full-time at Stadion Letzigrund against France the artist’s name was more in keeping with the mood among supporters, because Sarina Wiegman’s side are in genuine danger of being chucked out of Euro 2025.
England will point to Alessia Russo’s goal at 0-0 being ruled out for an offside that did not seem conclusive even from zoomed-in VAR images, yet the simple truth is this: if England do not improve markedly when they face the Netherlands on Wednesday, they will probably be out before they face Wales in their final group match. Defeat would spell the end unless France lose to Wales later in the day.
Losing 2-1 to France is, in isolation, no cause for panic. It is not as if England were beaten by minnows; France were semi-finalists three years ago, are one of the world’s in-form sides in 2025 and their skilful, athletic team are contenders to win this trophy. It was the manner of England’s performance that signalled alarm bells. The Lionesses had two shots on target, lost too many duels – France winning 52 to 37 – and looked vulnerable to pace when they turned over possession. There were too many sloppy errors, too many players not on the top of their game.
At half-time, the English pundits on ITV were expressing huge concern, Emma Hayes saying “England have been bullied all over the pitch” and Karen Carney stating: “We looked like we’ve never played together. That wasn’t good enough.”
After the game, the England left-back Jess Carter admitted: “I think we played like we were a little bit scared today. Maybe we weren’t aggressive enough. We maybe were worrying about their threats in behind and what they can do rather than doing what we can do.
“We didn’t do as well on the ball, or off the ball. The only positive to take is that last 10 minutes. For me watching it from the side I really believed we would get a goal, I really felt like we could get a second goal. We have to focus on that 10 minutes that we did have at the end and take that over to the next game. The energy the subs brought on was incredible, really pressing and being aggressive.”
There were positives for the Lionesses, not least the late cameos by the promising young Arsenal striker Michelle Agyemang and the midfielder Grace Clinton, who provided energy, and the fact that England were much the stronger team for the opening 15 minutes. It was those middle 70 minutes – gulp – that were the problem.
As holders, England are there to be targeted. After five consecutive Women’s Euros between 1997 and 2013 where Germany successfully defended their title, the defending champions have gone out in the quarter-finals in the two tournaments since, the more recent fallen winners being the Netherlands. As it stands, England would be relieved to get that far.
What will encourage England supporters – who sang their new song loyally in support of the head coach even at 2-0 down – is that under Wiegman the team have scarcely played two poor games in a row, tending to respond to disappointing results with some of their best football. Last summer in qualifying ties, for example, they regrouped rapidly after losing to France at St James’ Park and beat the same opponents in Saint-Étienne four days later with arguably their best performance since the World Cup. A sloppy loss to Belgium in October 2023 was followed by an impressive home win over the Netherlands, and after this year’s defeat in Belgium came a resounding 6-0 victory over Portugal at Wembley in May.
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Therein also lies one of the underlying concerns about this England team over the past 24 months: chronic inconsistency. There have almost been two England teams: the wasteful England who got an off-colour draw in Portugal in February and the impressive England who beat the world champions, Spain, at Wembley five days later; the England who have looked vulnerable to pace on the counterattack against technically-inferior opposition – twice conceding three goals against Belgium – and the England resolute and organised enough to secure clean sheets against the United States, Sweden and Spain.
Which of those Englands will turn up against the 2017 European champions on Wednesday? The answer needs to be the latter. England are playing knockout football, with the Euros only days old. The time to rediscover their magic of 2022 and deliver the performances everyone knows they are capable of has arrived.
