Sarina Wiegman says she is “happy and very relieved” after England qualified for Euro 2025 with a 0-0 draw against Sweden.
England needed to take a point against Sweden to guarantee their automatic qualification for next summer’s tournament at their opponents expense and would have had to navigate the play-offs had they been beaten on Tuesday evening.
The stalemate ensured they finished second in Group A3, one point behind group winners France, who were beaten by Republic of Ireland on Tuesday.
“I’m happy and very relieved,” Wiegman told ITV Sport. “Because it was a tough game. Again two different phases; first half I think we dominated beside the last part. When you play so well and are so dominant, we have to create more chances have to score goals. And the second half we couldn’t keep up that level.
“Now we have a year to prepare. What we want to improve is keep the level (in the second half) because we did that against France too. We did fight for it. Of course they bring more people up front but still I think we can do a little bit better. But keeping the 0-0, qualifying in this group, which is a very hard group, I’m just relieved.”
England enjoyed spells of pressure during the first period but rarely troubled the Sweden goal, while goalkeeper Hannah Hampton was forced into two important saves in the second half and Leah Williamson was fortunate to not concede a penalty for a lunging challenge on Rosa Kafaji, who opted to stay on her feet.
“We don’t make it easy for ourselves when we don’t score because those moments become even nervier but I think we’ve seen out a game, same in France,” Williamson added. “These are tough fixtures to come away (from).
“We stood firm and we stayed true — we couldn’t play the football we wanted to play in the second half which put us under a lot of pressure. I’m happy to see the game out because it could have gone differently.
England took two points off World Cup semi-finalists Sweden, six points from the Republic of Ireland and three from Euro 2022 semi-finalists France during qualification, with Sweden and Republic of Ireland having to settle for a place in the play-offs.
The Lionesses and France join Germany, Iceland, Italy, Netherlands, Spain and Denmark in qualifying automatically for next summer’s tournament.
England head to Switzerland as the defending European champions, having beaten Germany in the final of Euro 2022.
(David Lidstrom/Getty Images)
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