ZURICH, Switzerland -- England captain Leah Williamson has said they are wary of a Sweden team flying under the radar at Euro 2025 and believes the fact few are talking about their quarterfinal opponents as potential winners of the competition is "slightly disrespectful."
England finished second in Group D and will face Sweden, who topped Group C, with a perfect nine points. That clean sweep of victories included a remarkable 4-1 dismantling of Germany last time out.
Williamson and England know Sweden well, and played each other in the semifinals of Euro 2022, a match England won 4-0. Since then, they've faced each other twice, with both matches ending in draws.
"Sweden are a fantastic team, they're relentless in the way they go about their game," Williamson said.
"I think they sort of avoid the expectation of every tournament, and nobody really talks about them, [which is] slightly disrespectful, I think, because they always show up and they always seem to pose a threat to most teams, and normally come out with a medal or [be] a semifinal team so, yes, they're a strong team. We're looking forward to the fixture."
Williamson will come up against a few familiar faces, including her fellow Arsenal teammate Stina Blackstenius. When asked whether that familiarity may help her, Williamson answered: "Yes, I suppose so, but she knows me just as well so I think we'll nullify each other's threats there."
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For Georgia Stanway, she is wary of the physical threat Sweden pose.
"We've got a lot of experience against them," she said. "Obviously they're tough, they're physical, they're more direct. I'm not sure we've faced that so far in our group, but we do have a lot of experience against them. We review this game and we've got a few days' rest and then we'll do what we can to put ourselves in the best possible position."
She added there's little point drawing any comparisons between this match and the game back in Euro 2022.
"It's a completely different tournament," she said. "It's really hard to compare anything that happens in other tournaments and yeah, our focus is on us, our focus is on making sure that we know our things going into the game.
"I think we just need to continue where we've been: have the intensity that we had against the Netherlands, press the way that we pressed, win the ball back as much as we did [against Wales]. We can only control what we can do."