England are guaranteed Group A winners with a game to play, setting up a quarter-final against second-placed Group B, likely to be Germany, Spain or Denmark. “I don’t think we were afraid of someone coming in [to this tournament]. There’s a great line that I love and it’s, ‘Nobody wins afraid of losing,’” Williamson said, emphasizing her love of country music, with the line used in Chris Stapleton’s popular song Starting Over. “That’s not the attitude we have. We go into every game to win it. Of course, the stakes are getting higher and higher and we wanted to go through the group. We have one more game to go at the end of the week [against Northern Ireland on Friday]. Let’s hope that, whatever team we face, we will know our strengths.” Against Norway, England were six goals down at half-time and Williamson was at the heart of a defense that kept three of the world’s best strikers, Ada Hegerberg, Guro Reiten and Caroline Graham Hansen, quiet. “My job was to be a defender and the girls did their job up top,” Williamson said. “It was important for us to do the same. They are world-class players, all three of them. It’s a good performance at both ends of the pitch.” Leah Williamson This defensive solidity was built up front and the dominance and relentless battle of Keira Walsh, Fran Kirby and Georgia Stanway in the middle shielded the backline effectively. “If you look at all our goals, we’re winning it high [up the pitch] and here we go again,” Williamson said. “They’ve been doing really well in that and second balls.” At halftime there was disbelief in the score and the conquest of dominance. “It’s a shock,” Williamson said when asked if they were that surprised in the dressing room. “It’s an incredible team. It’s not something you expected to happen, but at the same time we have work to do. “It’s nice for everyone to get carried away and enjoy this moment in the stands, but once we got in, we set our goals for the second half and made sure we were ready for whatever came our way.” Winning manner will boost the team’s following as it progresses. “It helps if you play that way and put on a show like we did,” Williamson said. “This is so important. As I’ve said before, Sarina [Wiegman] He really wants us to engage with the fans when we’re here, but also the people at home watching on TV. This is the type of football, if I turned on my TV, that I would want to see.”
