ZURICH -- Leah Williamson said England were undone by "cheap sort of emotional defending" in their 2-1 defeat to France while Sarina Wiegman said she had no regrets over the team she picked for their Euro 2025 opener.
England were outclassed by France in Zurich on Saturday, meaning the Lionesses have to realistically win their next two Group D matches against the Netherlands and Wales to progress to the knockout stages.
France were dominant for much of the match, scoring twice in the first half while Alessia Russo had a 13-minute strike ruled out by VAR for a Beth Mead offside. But that Russo chance was one of the few opportunities carved out by England until Keira Walsh's late consolation strike.
"I feel quite emotional actually," Williamson told BBC post-match.
"I'm disappointed there were 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. I'm just frustrated because I think the football that we played near the end, and the game plan, could've worked. We just didn't execute it exceptionally well.
"I recognise that the middle of the game is when we did go a little bit flat and I think there were some decisions that if they'd of gone our way would've really changed the momentum of the game.
"It doesn't look great from the table point of view but it was two heavyweights going up against each other and today we came up short. There's still every chance. The goal doesn't change."
Wiegman started Lauren James in attack despite the Chelsea forward only having had 30 minutes or so of match action since injuring her hamstring in April. Post-match, Wiegman said picking James "wasn't a mistake, it was a choice."
She added: "She didn't have a free role. I think we got exposed by losing the ball at moments we didn't want to lose the ball. That was our main topic to find a solution on."
The Lionesses manager said much of England's problems were down to their wayward short-passing game.
"Overall of course we want to do better -- that will be the big learnings," Wiegman said. "We caused our own problems."
Russo said the team will have to channel this frustration into an improved performance when they play the Netherlands on Wednesday in Zurich.
"I don't necessarily look at it as on the back foot," Russo said.
"We know what we want to do as a team. Obviously we are disappointed right now but we've got to use it as fuel to our fire and as a team to make us even better."