ENGLAND AND WALES SUFFER DEFEATS AT EURO 2025
On July 5th and July 9th, 2025, Wales and England suffered defeats in their opening games at the UEFA Women’s Euro.
Wales lost their first match at the Euro 3-0 to the Netherlands. It was Wales’s first appearance at the Women’s Euros. The Netherlands were tough opponents, having won the Euro Championship in 2017 and runners-up at the World Cup in 2019.
From the start, the Netherlands held up a ferocious attack, but Wales held strong with some exceptional defense. However, just before halftime, Dutch forward Vivianne Miedema scored a goal against Wales. After the break, Victoria Pelova and Esmee Brugts scored two goals within ten minutes of each other.
After the match, Coach Angharad James of Wales said, “Every game is a tough game. We gave it our all. It wasn’t quite good enough, we know that and we’ll learn from that.” She showed that she felt very proud of her team and was determined that they would do better next time.
On the other side, the England Lionesses lost 2-1 to France. The England Lionesses were defending champions from the last Euro. At the start of the game, the England Lionesses thought they had made a great start with Alessia Russo scoring in just sixteen minutes. However, it was ruled out by VAR. This signaled for France to go on the attack.
By halftime, France’s Sandy Baltimore had scored on England twice, putting France in control of the game.
In the eighty-seventh minute, Keira Walsh scored a goal for England. However, France kept the score at 2-1, resulting in England becoming the first defending champion to lose their first game.
England defender Alex Greenwood says, “It was disappointing, disappointing result. I think we finished the game strong, but we don’t want to be in situations like that where we are finishing games like that.” She means that in the future, England will try to avoid mistakes similar to the ones made in their match against France. England’s next game is on July 16th against the Netherlands in Zurich.
Links to articles:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/articles/c93kddpq11zo