‘We thrive under pressure’: Hemp defiant despite England’s losing start

Lauren Hemp said the Lionesses “thrive under pressure” after a 2-1 defeat by France plunged them into in effect a must-win game against the Netherlands on Wednesday.

England’s midfield collapse was concerning in their Euro 2025 opener, the team sloppy in possession and punished on the wings, but Hemp struck a defiant tone.

She believes a squad containing many of the players who won Euro 2022, reached the World Cup final a year later and have repeatedly bounced back since from negative results need not be too downcast. England will be out if they lose against the Netherlands and France get a point or more against Wales in the later kick-off.

“A lot of the time, we thrive under pressure,” Hemp said. “Every game we go into we want to win. Based on how we acted in the last 10 minutes of the game, you can see we know what’s at stake. We obviously want to get as far as we can. We are reigning champions and that is important to remember and gain confidence from.

“I love playing in football matches where we need to win – they’re the games you want to be involved in – so it’s important we take confidence from parts of yesterday.”

England were unlucky that an almost invisible offside denied them the opening goal before France struck twice at the Stadion Letzigrund. Then a late rally was held off by a France defence without the dropped Wendie Renard and injured Griedge Mbock.

“Obviously, we’re really disappointed with the result,” said Hemp. “It was back out on the grass for a lot of the girls today and I think you can see a lot of confidence too.”

Hemp was talking pitchside after a community open training session at England’s base, at the home of FC Glattbrugg, who invited their women’s and girls’ teams to watch alongside other local clubs and schools and the local mayor. The forward said what had been missing against France was “quality in possession”.

“We pride ourselves on that as a team,” she said. “Unfortunately, sometimes in games you fail to have that and make mistake after mistake, but it’s important that we reflect on that. We know that we can be better, but something that we can take from the game is the fight that we showed. Even when things aren’t going our way, we can still try to turn it around and we came close.

“That shows we can compete against the best even when we aren’t necessarily at our best. The problem is you can’t afford to do that in this competition, so we’re going to make sure we’re back at our best going into the next game.”

There were no harsh words between players on Sunday morning, according to Hemp, who said it was “more of an arm around each other”.

She said: “When times are tough we’ve had difficult conversations on the pitch. After it, off it, you’ve got to come together rather than push each other further apart. That’s what this team’s good at: getting around each other and supporting each other, because we’re going to need everyone back up to their best on Wednesday.”