Stanway says Euro title defence begins in Germany friendly

Georgia Stanway says the defence of England's European title begins now as they prepare to face Germany in a friendly at Wembley in a repeat of the Euro 2022 final.

- Tom Garry

The midfielder, who plays for Bayern Munich and is in line to face several of her clubmates on Friday, says England will use their four upcoming friendlies to "hit the ground running" before the finals tournament in Switzerland next summer, having qualified automatically with their results in July.

Asked whether England had "gone stale" since reaching the World Cup final in 2023, in light of defeats by Belgium and France and narrowly missing out on Olympic qualification on behalf of Team GB, Stanway said: "No, I feel like it is always going to happen where you have a little bit of a comedown from things. We won a Euros, we made a World Cup final which was unbelievable.

"At some point, there is going to be a bit of a plateau. The Nations League was a little bit rocky but our performances [away] against France and Sweden, who are both top nations and will be among the top teams in the Euros, they're both exceptional. From that you can see how we want to play, the football we want to play going into the Euros.