Lauren Hemp vows England won’t be complacent in Women’s Euro 2025 ‘rivalry’ against Wales | OneFootball

Lauren Hemp has vowed England won’t be complacent against Wales and said the Lionesses are treating the Euro 2025 clash as a “derby” as the holders look to advance to the quarter-finals.

England require a win to confirm their place in the knockout stages after keeping their title defence alive with a 4-0 win over the Netherlands on Wednesday. Wales are all-but eliminated from their major tournament debut after a 4-1 defeat to France.

England have lacked consistency in recent months and have bounced from victory to defeat and back again since April’s win over Belgium - the only time they have won consecutive games in the past year under Sarina Wiegman.

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Lauren Hemp played in England’s 4-0 win over Netherlands (Getty)

Forward Hemp said: “We haven't lost back to back games either, so that's a bonus. I feel like you can feel the confidence in this camp running through everyone. It’s important that we take the things that we did so well on Wednesday into that game on Sunday.

“I feel like every game is different. But we're in a tournament, we've felt that loss [against France] and we tried to turn it around and we have done. We're hoping to take that momentum into the next one and hoping for a great result.

“We definitely won't go into the game complacent. Wales have done well this tournament, they deserve to be here and we've got so much respect for them. They've got a lot of great players who I have experienced playing week in week out in the WSL, so they've got a good team.

“But we've got a good team as well and we’ve got so many strengths. We've looked at their strengths and what we need to do to make sure that we can give the best performance that we can do.”

Wales are all-but eliminated from the Euros as a 3-0 defeat to the Netherlands and 4-1 defeat to France leaves them requiring a win over England and for other results to go their way. Wales need to hope France beat the Netherlands, and also require a huge goal swing to finish about England.

But Rhian Wilkinson’s side would relish the opportunity to stop England from progressing to the quarter-finals and Hemp said the Lionesses were aware of how big a game it is for them.

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Wales are making their tournament debut at Women’s Euro 2025 (Getty)

“It's gonna be a really tough match, obviously we've got so much respect for Wales,” Hemp said. “They've done really well in the competition so far, but we're very desperate to win and we know what it's going take to win. You never know what you're going to get from this team, but what you will get is a lot of fight and a lot of character.

“Wales have done so well to get here and we have got so much respect for them as an England team. We know the rivalry is huge, so we want to win as much as possible.

“It’s important that we all want to improve the women’s game as far as we can. It’s a great rivalry and these are the games you want to be involved in. We’re all very excited about it and we don’t need to explain the rivalry. It’s a derby, we want to win, end of.”