England optimistic over Williamson's fitness for Euro 2025 semi-final
Leah Williamson suffered a knock in England's dramatic victory over Sweden, but is expected to be fit to face Italy on Tuesday.
England are optimistic over Leah Williamson's chances of featuring against Italy in next week's Euro 2025 semi-final, so says her team-mate Esme Morgan.
Williamson sustained an ankle injury during England's remarkable win over Sweden in Thursday's quarter-final.
England came back from 2-0 down to progress 3-2 on penalties, in a shoot-out in which nine of the 14 spot-kicks were missed.
Williamson returned to camp wearing a protective boot, but Morgan – who would be a potential candidate to replace the Arsenal defender in Sarina Wiegman's line-up – is confident the England captain will be fit to play against Italy on Tuesday.
"We are very optimistic that Leah will be available," Morgan said on Saturday.
"She seemed in very high spirits this morning and I want what’s best for the team and that’s absolutely having our captain on the pitch for us."
Asked if she was prepared to step in, Morgan added: "I'm the same as every single game. Be prepared to play if I'm needed. I'll know the role, and just be absolutely ready to train at a high level over the next few days. But we're very optimistic that Leah will be fine."
England are the first reigning champions to reach a Euros semi-final since Germany back in 2013 – on the last five occasions the reigning champions have featured in the semi-finals they have gone on to reach the final (Germany in 1997, 2001, 2005, 2009 and 2013), with Norway the last to be eliminated in 1995 (lost 7-5 on aggregate to Sweden).
The Lionesses have won seven of their last 10 games in all competitions against Italy (D1 L2), although they have lost each of the two head-to-heads at the Euros – in 1987 and 2009 (both 1-2).
Wiegman's side have a 61% win probability, according to Opta's supercomputer, and asked how England are preparing themselves for another huge clash, Morgan said: "Everyone who played significant minutes had a recovery day to be able to just sort of reset, get moving again. The finishers went to train and had a really intense session.
"It's just a case of getting off feet, bringing yourself back down to earth, even mentally, just to have a chilled day to reset after all of the excitement of the night before.
"Just everyone being able to relax, switch off a little bit, ready to then turn our full focus to the Italy game and be ready to go with full energy into that."
