The sky is the limit – Alessia Russo confident after England rediscover ‘DNA'

Yahoo

2 days ago

Alessia Russo feels 'the sky's the limit' for England after the Lionesses rediscovered their 'DNA' in an emphatic 4-0 group-stage victory over the Netherlands which kept alive their Women's European Championship title defence.
It was a complete reversal of fortunes for the Lionesses following their opening loss to France and they entered the contest in Zurich – watched by Prince William from the Stadion Letzigund stands – knowing they had little hope of surviving the group stage without securing all three points against the 2017 winners.
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Lauren James opened the scoring with a superb goal before bagging a brace on the hour, either side of Georgia Stanway's first-half stoppage-time strike, before Ella Toone – the only fresh face in Sarina Wiegman's starting XI – added a fourth in the 67th minute.
'After the France game, we looked at ourselves a lot as individuals and how we can all be better and obviously within the team,' said player-of-the-match Russo, who contributed three assists.
'I think that going into this game we wanted to start with that, setting our own standards high on and off the ball and we definitely did that.
'I think when that's our standard as a team, then the sky's the limit.'
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Goalkeeper Hannah Hampton was singled out for her distribution prowess, particularly after providing the excellent long pass to Russo that allowed her to tee up James for the opener.
Russo was also the provider for Stanway and Toone, while James – moved out wide – silenced critics who felt she was still not at her best after returning from a three-month hamstring injury recovery in their tournament send-off.
'I knew that we were capable of performances like that and I know that we still are, and that's what we want,' said Russo.
'We've set the standard now. We were obviously really disappointed after France but we knew that we had the ability to bounce back and we also knew that we really needed to win two of the group games and the job didn't really change.
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'We put on a performance today that we are all proud of, but we want to continue with as well.
This week's mantra has centred around the idea of returning to 'proper English' football.
Russo added: 'We'll work hard, we'll work until we can't run anymore, we stick together, we know we're very dominant on the ball as well.
'I think returning to that, that's our standards, our DNA as a team and we definitely saw that today from the first minute right until the end.'
Sarina Wiegman admitted to feeling tension before the match (Nick Potts/PA)
England boss Wiegman is a back-to-back winner in this tournament, having led the Netherlands then the Lionesses to the trophy before suffering her own first major tournament group-stage loss against France.
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The often-stoic Dutchwoman admitted she 'felt a little tension' ahead of the crunch clash.
Wiegman said: 'I think that's completely normal. You really want to stay in the tournament, so you really want to win, but we also know that this is a very good team.'
Wiegman was delighted by how well the Lionesses had turned four days of conversations into effective execution of her game plan.
She added: 'It reflects on the players and on the team. There are always things going well and not going well and we don't make it a disaster.'