Lionesses: Sarina Wiegman's 'new England' suffer growing pains as Euros title defence starts on sour note | OneFootball

The title holders were all out of sorts as they were played off the park by France

Sarina Wiegman’s “new England” will take some getting used to after they kicked off their European Championship defence with a 2-1 loss to France in Zurich.

Everything's the same but different for England. 13 members of Sarina Wiegman's 23-man squad for the European Championships were part of the victorious side that lifted the Euros on home soil three years ago, yet this feels like a new era for the Lionesses.

"It’s a new challenge, the approach was there anyway but we call it a new England," Wiegman said in her pre-match comments. The challenge will be for a new set of leaders to step into the void left by the likes of Kirby, Earps and particularly Bright.

There were bright moments early on, spearheaded by James, and England came within an offside call of taking a 16th-minute lead through Alessia Russo. France, though, are now on a nine-game winning run and have only conceded two goals since February.

Their focus and experience were simply too much against England’s early optimism, with Marie Antoinette Katoto and Sandy Baltimore scoring twice inside three minutes at the end of the first-half to take the game away from England.

Wiegman will have looked to her defence, with Lucy Bronze, Williamson, Alex Greenwood, on her 100th England appearance, and Jess Carter having made a combined 337 caps between them, to step up and take ownership.

Instead, they were left floundering by France’s intensity.

A loose pass from 68-cap Beth Mead, scorer of six goals at the 2022 Euros and a semi-final strike against Sweden, nearly handed France a third early in the second-half. It was symptomatic of the team’s general malaise, and she was replaced on the hour mark.

Carter, too, made way at the same time as Mead. The decision to play her at left-back was one of the main talking points heading into the game, and her muddled performance, with France routinely breaking into space down her flank, spoke to a night where England got very little right, even if they nearly found an unlikely equaliser at the death.

Wiegman and Williamson were on message in their pre-match comments as they painted the picture of an England side who've evolved out of the shadow of three years ago.

Actions, though, speak louder than words and a disorganised display, namely from some of the Lionesses’ most senior players, will have done little to dispel the idea that England have been going through the motions in their search for a new identity.