{"id":18908,"date":"2025-07-18T12:28:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-18T12:28:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/18908\/"},"modified":"2025-07-18T12:28:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-18T12:28:09","slug":"dont-ever-write-us-off-reaction-as-england-beat-sweden-to-reach-euro-2025-semi-finals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/18908\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Don’t ever write us off’ – Reaction as England beat Sweden to reach Euro 2025 semi-finals"},"content":{"rendered":"

What threat could Italy provide?published at 11:41 British Summer Time<\/p>\n

11:41 BST<\/p>\n

\"\"Alex Brotherton
BBC Sport journalist<\/p>\n

Though Italy only scored three goals in the group stages, they have scored first in each of their four outings in Switzerland.<\/p>\n

Andrea Soncin’s side controlled possession in the first half against Norway and transitioned from defence to attack with frightening speed.<\/p>\n

England’s defence have already struggled with the pace of France and Sweden’s forwards, and that has been an ongoing concern since the World Cup in 2023.<\/p>\n

“Italy load the line. They do it really effectively and the Norwegians just couldn’t deal with how they stretch the game,” former England defender Anita Asante said on BBC One.<\/p>\n

Italy like to make the pitch as wide as possible. Against Norway their wide players hugged the touchline, meaning makeshift left-back Guro Reiten was unable to contribute to attacks. They could look to pin back England full-backs Lucy Bronze and Alex Greenwood in a similar way.<\/p>\n

Media caption, <\/p>\n

Italy through to semi-finals with late winner<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What threat could Italy provide?published at 11:41 British Summer Time 11:41 BST Alex BrothertonBBC Sport journalist Though Italy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18909,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[403,99],"class_list":["post-18908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18908","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18908"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18908\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}