England captain Leah Williamson accused emotions for her team's uncharacteristic performance in their 2-1 loss to France in their opening game of Women's Euro 2025 on Saturday, saying they dropped short to leave them in the dressing room before kickoff.
Marie-Antoinette Katoto and Sandy Baltimore struck in the first half for France to leave England's travelling fans in stunned silence and while Keira Walsh pulled one support in the 87th minute and the Lionesses possessed some near-misses towards the close, it was too little too late for the reigning champions.
"I'm disappointed there was some cheap sort of emotional defending in the first half, when you take waves of attack like that you leave yourself open to those sorts of things," Williamson said of their poor one-on-one defending.
"I'm just frustrated because I think the football that we played near the terminate, and the game plan, could've worked.
We just didn't carry out it exceptionally well.
"We spoke (at halftime) as players, we take responsibility individually and as a team.
We have a calm environment at the minute but there was an injection of obtain the emotion out, leave it in the changing room, and move out and just be pragmatic over it and try and insert a snapped of 'umph' into the game.
"The loss was manager Sarina Wiegman's first in a European Championship after leading both the Netherlands (2017) and England (2022) to titles.
"Of course we're frustrated, we possessed three very good weeks and we trained really well but that's never a guarantee that you'll win the game," Wiegman said.
"And you also know that France is a proper team too, so you have to do things really well.
We just didn't obtain it right at those moments.
"The first goal of the night almost moved to England but Alessia Russo's strike was chalked off after VAR ruled that Beth Mead possessed been offside in the buildup.
Wiegman also trusted Russo was fouled on France's second goal but a VAR review said otherwise.
"I'm not the referee but I'm upset," she said.
England have been slow off the start in previous major tournaments, edging Austria 1-0 to kick off Euro 2022 and Haiti 1-0 at the 2023 World Cup en route to their first final appearance.
"I can't really compare all the first games in tournaments," Wiegman said.
"I think playing against France is just totally different than every other start of a tournament because I think they're a world-class team, and I think we're a very good team too.
"England now confront a mammoth task on Wednesday against the Netherlands, 3-0 winners over Wales in Saturday's other Group D game.
