“We’ve spoken about wanting to be ‘proper England’,” midfielder Georgia Stanway said at the press conference before facing the Netherlands in the second of their three group-phase games.
“We want to go back to what we’re good at — we want to go back to a traditional style of football — tough tackles, getting back to our roots.” This suggests ‘proper England’ is really about a mentality, and desire, when out of possession, to make it difficult for opponents.
“The players use that a lot now,” Wiegman said about the phrase after that 4-0 win over her home country, the Netherlands.
But ‘proper England’ alone won’t be enough to win this quarter-final. Sweden will be more fearful of Lauren James’ creativity, Lauren Hemp’s trickery and Keira Walsh’s diagonal passes.
‘Proper England’ might be a useful phrase in terms of mentality and team bonding. But under Wiegman, England have shown they’re capable of so much more.
GO FURTHER
Will ‘proper England’ be enough against Sweden at the Euros?
