'Relentless Sweden deserve more recognition'

England drew against Sweden in two Euro 2025 qualifiers last year

England captain Leah Williamson says Euro 2025 quarter-final opponents Sweden are "relentless" at major tournaments and "deserve a little bit more recognition".

Sarina Wiegman's side finished runners-up in Group D, while Sweden won all three group matches to finish top of Group C and set up Thursday's match (20:00 BST).

Sweden beat Euro 2022 finalists Germany 4-1 with an impressive performance in their last match and conceded just one goal in the group stage.

Alongside England and France, they are the only nations to have reached the quarter-finals in all five major tournaments since 2017.

And aside from their 4-0 loss to England in the Euro 2022 semi-finals, Sweden have won six of their past seven games in the competition.

"Sweden's previous results at tournaments are incredible. They are relentless when it comes to tournament football," said Williamson.

"Maybe disrespectful is too strong a word, but I do think they deserve a little bit more recognition.

"When you have a team who work for each other like Sweden, then you don't need to necessarily have a crazy standout threat because everyone plays their roles.

"They are hard to prepare for in that sense. The discipline for them all to complete their jobs on the pitch makes them a dangerous side."

'Stina is an incredibly powerful footballer'

Stina Blackstenius (left) has scored 26 goals in 71 appearances for Arsenal

While Williamson believes there are no standout players in a strong Sweden side, she is very familiar with the threat Arsenal team-mate Stina Blackstenius poses.

She opened the scoring with a composed finish in the win over Germany, and netted in their 3-0 victory against Poland.

The 29-year-old also came off the bench to score the only goal as Arsenal beat Barcelona in the Women's Champions League final in May.

"Stina is an incredibly powerful footballer. She's very intelligent with her runs. She's a hard player to play against in that respect," said Williamson.

"We were celebrating her success at Arsenal - but not so much now! She's a great player and she has been for many years now. Her experience speaks for itself.

"It's different [to] playing each other in training with restrictions. It's rare that I get to play against Stina in this setting. I enjoy it, and I like Stina.

"It's tough to remove all of that. You don't want to focus on it too much and there's lots of things that come into play when you play against a team-mate, but I think I've known Stina long enough that I know who she is and it's time to focus on us."