Speaking after a 1-1 draw with Sweden in the first match of their EURO2025 qualifying campaign, Lionesses midfielder Georgia Stanway told FromTheSpot that England’s away clash with the Republic of Ireland next week ‘might be a little bit feisty.’
England took a first-half lead at Wembley Stadium on Friday night through an Alessia Russo header, but were forced to settle for a share of the spoils when Fridalina Rolfö found the back of the net to restore parity.
Reflecting on the performance, Stanway offered: ‘I think the things that we’re normally really composed in are the things that we struggled with today. They went man-to-man in the press – I still think we had a lot of joy on the ball and found a lot of spaces but it was just that next action that we needed to complete. It’s not a bad start, it’s not a great start.’
‘The way that they pressed really challenged us. I think obviously you can see that they cut off one centre-back which left one of our centre-backs with a lot of the ball, and sometimes that’s not always the best thing because the whole of the pitch is man-man – or woman-woman!’
But despite being held to a draw, Stanway insists that the team are ‘in a really good place – as you can see, the performance wasn’t a bad performance. There are a couple of things that we can do, there are things that we can work on in terms of the end product and the technical areas. I think we’re in a good place, you can see after Marbella [training camp in February] how much we’ve taken it to the next level and as proven today, we can still take it to the next level.’
Asked by FromTheSpot for a preview of next week’s clash with the Irish at Dublin’s Aviva Stadium, the Bayern Munich midfielder explained that her ‘full focus has been on today. I know there’s a rivalry so it might be a little bit feisty,’ she continued, ‘but my full focus was on the game today, it will be until tomorrow when we’ve reviewed it. Then, going forwards, we’ll be able to focus on Ireland.’
