England Gear Up to Face World Champions in Nations League.

European Champions versus World Champions, two teams with an insane amount of history go head to head in the Women’s Nations League this Wednesday, 26th February, in an attempt to gain more points going forward. England will take on Spain at Wembley Stadium, where both teams are hoping to bag a win. The most memorable previous moment between the two teams is the 2023 World Cup final, where England narrowly lost out on the title to Spain, so England will be hoping to bounce back in tomorrow’s game.

After last week’s fixtures, Spain took away a 3-2 win against Belgium on Friday, getting them off to a good start for 2025. England suffered a 1-1 draw against Portugal, with a goal from Alessia Russo beginning the scoring, but a goal from Kika Nazareth in the 75th minute saw England panic, and an all important second goal did not come about. At the end of the game in a press conference, manager Sarina Wiegman recognised that “[the team] have a lot to work on”, so have been working hard over the last few days since their return to England in preparation for the upcoming clash with Spain.

Both teams have evolved massively since the 2022 EUROs and the 2023 World Cup, with new players coming in and other players either not being called up or announcing their retirement, as well as the Spain squad being rocked by the recent news of Luis Rubiales being charged for his inappropriate actions towards Jenni Hermoso after the World Cup final, so both teams have it all to play for tomorrow. 

In the pre-match press conference held at Wembley today, Sarina Wiegman was asked about the upcoming game and the determination that the squad have. She said, “We’re playing football to win games and we’ll try to be at our best tomorrow again and be connected as a team. What we want to do is get more consistency and create momentum in the game. Sometimes things go really well and sometimes things don’t go that well. We’re trying to stay very neutral and say, ‘this is where we are right now and we want to move forward so what do we have to do?’ Hopefully that will bring us the win tomorrow.”

Wiegman also brought striker Alessia Russo to the conference, after her goal against Portugal on Friday. Russo was positive about the upcoming game, and whether there was any bad blood between the two teams after the World Cup final. “For me, revenge kind of reflects on the past a little bit. We’re a new team and we’ve got lots of new faces and lots of new qualities within the squad now. We don’t want to be looking back. Obviously, it hurt. You can ask every player that was in that game and it wasn’t nice to lose out but we want to be moving forward. We’ve got a new opportunity – we’re back at Wembley and we’ve got all of our fans there and we’re really looking forward to it.”

England have beaten Spain on home soil in the past 5 games in all competitions, the most recent being a 2-1 win against La Roja during the EUROs in 2022. They will be hoping to keep that streak going for tomorrow’s game. However, Spain have won each of their last three games in all competitions, scoring 12 goals in that time, three of which have come in added time in the second half, including two that were scored in their most recent game on Friday. There is a lot to play for, and it is set to be an intense game, with fans of both teams heading to Wembley to join in on the action. 

Tomorrow’s game takes place at Wembley Stadium, kicking off at 20:00 GMT. It will be available to watch on ITV 4 in the UK.