Losing your opening match of Euro 2025 as defending champions is far from ideal but England getting beaten by France wasn’t exactly massively unexpected either, as hard as that is to write.
We knew about the draw and how difficult it was going to be. England are in a genuinely tough group. The Netherlands are the 2019 European Championship winners and France are reinvented without former key players and carry a huge threat.
You have to execute the gameplan perfectly, for 90-plus minutes, if you are going to stand a chance of a result against one of the top teams.
But for the middle part of Saturday’s Euro 2025 defeat to France, we let them get on the front foot and play. Only in the final 15 minutes did we get a hold on the game and France kept the edge physically.
England left big gaps and were not tidy enough on the ball. Tonight against the Netherlands in Zurich we have another big task.
Vivianne Miedema (right) has just scored her 100th goal in 126 internationals and is just 28-years-old – that is an insane goals-to-games ratio.
The Netherlands will be full of energy and I feel Sarina Wiegman may make changes. I liked the three at the back later on against France but I don’t see that as the starting formation this time.
It’s in midfield where there could be alterations. Do we use Lauren James as an impact player off the bench?
The substitutes – such as Arsenal forward Michelle Agyemang – were very impactful on Saturday. She can cause chaos. But should the changes have been made earlier? As the final whistle approached, we needed another ten to 15 minutes to get anything from the game.
A lot of the performance, individually and collectively, was sub-par. I feel we panicked at the back and there were missed opportunities to stop Sandy Baltimore on the way to her goal, which was the defining one at 2-0.
You have to be watertight at the back against top sides or they will exploit weaknesses and a team like France can also be physically superior.
We played into their hands and it was frustrating seeing England not at their best. They know they can compete with anyone in the world – they don’t fear anybody – and all they should be concerned with tonight is their own performance.
Sarina likes to control the controllables so the strategy against the Dutch will be thorough. There is no better duo than Sarina, the 2017 Euros-winning coach of the Netherlands, and her assistant Arjan Veurink, who will take charge of the Dutch after this tournament, to give an insight into how to beat them.
We know what we have to do now – we have to win. We have seen England do a job when they have to before and what they are good at is dusting themselves off and going out with the bit between their teeth.
They can deal with the pressure of major fixtures, having played in big matches for club and country. We have big-game players and know if we play at our best, we should get the outcome and result we want. It really is not all over yet.
Wales learning fast following Dutch exam
Wales made a pretty steady introduction to the next level of international football, executing their gameplan but going down 3-0 to a very good Dutch team in their Group D tie.
Rhian Wilkinson’s side wanted to come and play and that’s admirable.
They got caught out just before half-time and that is down to a lack of experience because the top teams keep going and going at it.
Wales certainly did not let themselves down, though, and didn’t let the Dutch have an easy ride.
France could turn up tonight expecting to win. It will be interesting to see whether Wales are as open or if they bank up as they did in some of their Nations League matches.
Rachel Brown-Finnis will be working on the BBC’s coverage of Euro 2025