England captain Leah Williamson says that while every Lioness has her own motivation, they all share the same goal: to win Euro 2025.
Speaking on The Lionesses Podcast, Williamson stressed the importance of England ‘finding their why’ ahead of an action-packed few weeks at Euro 2025.
England have already bounced-back from adversity, responding to a disappointing opening day defeat to France with a 4-0 victory over the Netherlands. The side will now face Wales for a spot in the knockout stages.
” Everybody will have a different reason,” Williamson said. “What’s your why? My why, just as an example, is that I missed the last tournament. So I’m probably a little bit more giddy, or like a bit more excited to be here, because I know what it’s like to miss out through bad luck.
“So that’s my why in one set of circumstances. You might have somebody that’s never missed anything, and their why is because they’re doing it for the family, so you have to know those things about each other for when times get tough it’s bringing it back to that.
“Obviously you’re never going to know everything about everybody, but it’s more, especially if you’ve already had a bad experience, it’s a lot easier to be like, okay, today’s tough. France, perfect example, no matter how nervous you felt before that game and how hard the game was, if I offered you a chance to do it again tomorrow, you’d say yes.
“So if you know that you’d walk back into the fire no matter how bad it was, why would you not then be better tomorrow, to make sure you don’t go back there?”
Williamson confident England has what it takes at Euro 2025
The captain, who has played every minute of England’s campaign so far, believes that the Lionesses have everything it takes to make an impact in Switzerland.
“There’s just something about us when we get to a tournament, I’m just filled with this base line confidence of I know that we can. Obviously football is football and so much can happen- good, bad, the other team could just be brilliant. There’s so much you can’t control.
“But we look at each other, we know we’ve been to the places that we need to go to again. I think it’s just built together, and the experiences that you have and the connections that we have, we just value each other and we want everybody to feel good, we also just want everyone to have a good time.
“We come here to work, but we want everyone to enjoy it so we do a lot of work to make sure we’re having a good time off the pitch so when you go on it’s like, this is my purpose, this is why I’m here, I’m going to do it with like full commitment, full with everything I have to give, goes to the pitch, so that in that off time, we are just spending time with our mates, and taking it all in. It makes you appreciate a bit more as well.”
