Sarina Wiegman not thinking about possible Euro 2025 exit ahead of crucial Netherlands clash

Sarina Wiegman is not thinking about a possible exit for England as they approach a must-win clash against her former employers the Netherlands at Euro 2025.

After losing their opening match 2-1 to France, the Lionesses require a result against the Dutch with a defeat set to send them crashing out at the group stage. A draw could keep their hopes alive, but England require three points to face a real chance of progressing.

Landed in the so-called ‘group of death’, England were dealt a tough schedule as they face France and the Netherlands, both teams who are billed to go far in the tournament, in their opening two games.

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It leaves no margin for error for Wiegman and her players, but the former Netherlands coach will not be thinking about anything other than the task at hand when she meets her former team.

“We don’t talk about consequences. We talk about our game plan, about what we have to do to our best and how we can exploit spaces that the Netherlands leave behind,” she said.

“Of course, it will be an intense game and we knew this was going to be a hard group.

“What we are occupied with is playing football, executing a task, sticking together and doing that together.

“Just work really hard and do everything to win.”

If England are to get the necessary three points, they will need to up their performance levels from their opening day performance.

While the Lionesses got off to a strong start, once Alessia Russo’s goal had been chalked off by VAR for an offside in the build-up they fell flat and a sloppiness creeped into their game.

The Netherlands will be more than happy to punish such mistakes with a similar ruthlessness to the French who fired two past England within three minutes.

“We have refuelled, we had conversations with the team, we have watched some clips and we spoke about actually starting really well and finishing really well,” said Wiegman.

"We didn’t do good enough. We want to execute better, we want to be less sloppy and we want to make better decisions but you move on to the next game and so we talked about our game plan, we trained it a bit and tomorrow we will go.”

For Wiegman, that next game involves facing the team she coached prior to her stint with the Lionesses.

In 2017, she lifted the European Championship trophy with Oranje Leeuwinnen before moving across the channel to repeat the feat with the Lionesses.

The match itself will bring plenty of familiar faces together, with many of the Dutch side competing in the Women’s Super League, including Manchester City’s Vivianne Miedema and Kerstin Casparij and Arsenal’s Daphne van Domselaar and Victoria Pelova.

The now England manager insisted that those relationships would have no bearing on the match tomorrow, however.

“My full focus is on England, on our team," she said. "Together with our technical staff and what keeps us busy is just, ‘What is our game plan? How are we going to keep the players busy to prepare them for tomorrow?’

“We have trained, we have meetings, we still have a meeting and then we go out there tomorrow and that is the only thing that I’m thinking about.”