England Women 1-1 Sweden Women: Lionesses held to draw in opening Euro 2025 qualifier

The England team, who are the current champions, started their journey to qualify for Euro 2025 with a 1-1 draw against Sweden. The match was played in front of a huge audience of 63,248 people at Wembley.

Alessia Russo scored the first goal of the game after receiving a pass from Lauren James before 24 minutes had passed. Although Sweden posed a threat, the Lionesses were able to maintain their lead until halftime.

It seemed like a tie was just around the corner after halftime. Eventually, Fridolina Rolfo made it happen by scoring with her head past Mary Earps. However, the Lionesses escaped with some luck when Stina Blackstenius of Arsenal missed a great opportunity to put Sweden ahead.

After the game, Sarina Wiegman expressed her opinion that the goal made by the opposing team was pointless. The score was made due to our team losing possession of the ball and allowing a throw-in, which then led to a goal being scored after failing to defend against a cross. This was a letdown for all of us.

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The manager of the English team countered the negative remarks made by a few experts who claimed that she had taken off her scorer too soon. The player was replaced by Chloe Kelly during the game's 79th minute.

She said: "Although Alessia played well, we wanted to implement a few tactical changes. We shifted Lauren Hemp's position to the inside. We simply desired to try something new and fresh."

During the Euro 2022 event, Leah Williamson, who was the captain, observed from the sidelines while Beth Mead and Lauren Hemp attempted to mount a comeback towards the end of the game. Unfortunately, they were unable to find the required finish, and the teams walked away with a single point.

Williamson was not able to participate in the outstanding World Cup run of the Lionesses last year due to an injury in her anterior cruciate ligament. She was also unable to join England for the February friendlies as she had to withdraw due to a hamstring problem. Her inclusion in the England team was her first in 11 months.

The player who is currently 27 years of age has returned to play for Gunners in January. However, it has not been a simple journey as she has recently faced a setback during the League Cup final held on Sunday. She was playing in the match with her knee taped up, but unfortunately, she had to be substituted out during the second half.

England Tied By Sweden In Soccer

Grace Clinton attempted to score for England in the beginning, and Sarina Wiegman became concerned when Russo collided with Magdalena Eriksson, a former captain of Chelsea. Russo needed a lot of help with her injured leg before she was finally cleared to keep playing.

Rolfo from Barcelona had a chance to score for Sweden, where she almost made it with a low shot that went just wide of the far post. However, minutes later, Russo scored the first goal of the game.

The game started with a great play by James, who managed to handle the ball near the edge of the field and made a precise clipped pass to Russo, who lowered his body to hit the ball into the net at the 24th minute.

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Throughout the first half, Sweden attempted to equalize the score multiple times, and appeared to pose a greater danger towards the end of the period. However, England managed to maintain their lead. The team's coach, Sarina Wiegman, made her first substitution by replacing Clinton with Toone. Towards the end of the half, Bronze made a poor header that was easily saved by Falk.

Peter Gerhardsson, the manager of Sweden, decided to make some changes during the game. This turned out to be a smart move, especially when England took a brief break and allowed Rosa Kafaji, one of the substitutes, to quickly become involved in the game and give a perfect assist for Rolfo's header past Earps.

England got away with it as they narrowly missed giving up another goal within a short period when Blackstenius, known for scoring the decisive goal in Arsenal's Conti Cup final, had the opportunity of a one-on-one shootout with Earps but unfortunately, her shot went in a different direction to the goal post.

More Euro 2022 luminaries took the field - Mead, who won the Golden Boot at that tournament, replaced James and Chloe Kelly, who scored the winning goal in the tournament's final. In addition, Jess Carter took over for her Chelsea colleague Niamh Charles.

The female Lion soccer team had very little time left to change the final score. They almost did it when Hemp took advantage of the ball bouncing back from her own shot and quickly took another shot. Falk, who had jumped out to block the first shot, had no possibility of interrupting the second one.

Eriksson made a crucial move to prevent the ball from entering the goal, resulting in a draw. Falk also made an impressive save to stop Mead's shot, ensuring that their team got one point from the match.

"Wiegman Disappointed With England's Draw"

The head of the England national team, Sarina Wiegman:

In my opinion, this team is extremely challenging. Naturally, I feel let down given that our ultimate goal is to come out victorious.

In my opinion, we managed to make an impressive score by successfully shooting the ball into the goal. The pace of the game was steady and we demonstrated good performance by holding onto the ball for a bit longer than usual.

I found the goal they made in the second half to be quite unnecessary. The reason why they scored was because we had given them a throw-in, but we failed to prevent them from crossing the ball in, leading to them scoring. It was a let-down.

Sweden definitely proved to be a challenging adversary. While there were certainly areas where we could have improved, it's important to recognize that Sweden really put up a fight.

Our objective is to gain knowledge from each game and enhance our performance in every subsequent competition, which is something other nations aim to accomplish as well. This exemplifies the intense competition and parity between us.

Russo: Each Point Matters In This Group

Alessia Russo, the forward player of England, spoke to ITV.

Sweden is a great team and we're in a challenging group. However, we're also a skilled team, so it's unfortunate that we lost. The fact remains that we encountered a formidable opponent. We'll think back and acquire knowledge from this experience, and then prepare ourselves for the next game on Tuesday.

We set our expectations at a lofty level and believe in pushing ourselves to achieve greater things. We acknowledge the need for improvement in certain areas where our standards may have been lower than desired. This is an area where we can make progress and raise the bar for everyone.

We encountered some tough competition as they applied a lot of pressure on us. It was quite a challenging match and we had some difficulty identifying the issues, but ultimately, we managed to come out with a tie.

It's a great feeling to score in Wembley Stadium, the esteemed home of English soccer. I relish the opportunity to wear the England uniform and compete on this field, so it's certainly satisfying to put a point on the board.

"It's huge, we understand that the team's outcome is significant and every outcome and every point is important."

On Tuesday, England is scheduled to play against the Republic of Ireland at the Aviva Stadium, with the match starting at 7.30pm.

On the same evening, there will be a match between Sweden and France in Group A3 with a kick-off time of 6pm.

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