Euro 2025: Lucy Bronze explains ‘proper England’ mantra

ZURICH — Lucy Bronze is adamant the “proper England” mantra within the team underlines how this is a group that can find a way to win a match “by any means possible.”

England play Sweden in Zurich on Thursday in the quarterfinal of Euro 2025. While Sweden are three from three in the Euros, England fell in their opener to France 2-1, and then responded with commanding wins over the Netherlands and Wales.

It was after that Dutch match that the Lionesses were talking about their “proper England” mentality.

It was a phrase first used after they defeated Spain back in February, and it’s something the group have resurfaced as they defend their Euros crown in Switzerland. It’s a catch-all for the group’s mentality, rather than a summation of their playing style.

“We’ve never negated tactics or anything else that comes with the game with the term ‘proper England,'” Bronze said. “I think it was more the fact that, we’ve said it before, we’re a ‘new England’ and a new team. What was meant by that was that we have a lot of younger players and new players who have very different experiences of playing for England compared to the likes of myself.

“England used to have to dig deep all the time — 2015 was the first time we beat Germany, that’s insane to think of right now. England of the past … it was that you had to dig out performances and it was that you were maybe the underdog, not the favourites. Whereas this England team has developed, football has changed.

“We’re a very talented team, a lot of technical ability, tactics, all that comes with it but we don’t want to ever forget that we are England, we are proper England and if push comes to shove, we can win a game by any means possible.”

Manager Sarina Wiegman said: “‘Proper England’ is who we are and what we want to show and of course that has to do with our tactics, how we want to play, but also our behaviours, how we want to support each other together, work really hard and of course play to our strengths too, so when we do that we think the chance of winning is the highest.”

England have all 23 players available for Thursday’s match after Jess Park sat out training earlier on Wednesday with a migraine.

Wiegman is preparing England for a Swedish aerial bombardment as Peter Gerhardsson’s team have made the most crosses out of any team in the tournament.

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“That’s what they want to do of course, we know they have some qualities,” Wiegman said. “They’re good in the air, they want to put in crosses, they have some speed up front too. So we’re going to try and prevent that. Of course, it helps when we have the ball a little bit more than they have.”

There have been several mentions of the Euro 2022 semifinal this week, a match England won 4-0. But both sides say that match will have zero baring on Thursday’s quarterfinal.

“I think it’ll be an exciting game regardless of the history of the teams, just because they’re two talented teams,” Bronze said.

“I think, [Kosovare] Asllani said, someone mentioned that she said in an interview that it’s going to be a fun game, and my interpretation was this is two teams that are in this game to win it, no sitting back, both very talented, athletic, physical, everything that you think of in a football game could happen because both teams are at that level.”