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The Ghana head coach, Kim Björkegren, has called for bravery and belief for today’s game against the European champions.
Björkegren said he watched England’s rout against China and felt his side could learn from the visitors’ errors.
I can’t blame them too much. But I think in how they attacked the game, they made some mistakes. They were too afraid. And if you are afraid to play against England, then you’re going to be destroyed, exactly what happened.
The Swede stressed Ghana must approach Sarina Wiegman’s with a different mentality.
We need to attack the game differently. We believe in ourselves. We know we have strong players who are ready to tackle, to work hard, to take every duel. I hope we can stay in the game as long as possible. Our gameplan is to win. Whether that’s realistic or not, I don’t know, and I don’t care.
The London City Lionesses midfielder Chantelle Boye-Hlorkah also said that while Ghana respect England, they do not fear them.
We can respect the opponent, but at the same time we need to be ourselves. We are the Black Queens, and we need to do our things.
We enjoy the football that we play. And we know that when we play our football, we can be a force against any team, any country we come up against.
There’s no fear whatsoever within our camp. We believe in ourselves, and we’ll see the performance we put out tomorrow. We play our best football when we believe in ourselves.
Team news
England XI (4-3-3): Moorhouse; Bronze, Le Tissier, Hinds, Wubben-Moy; Walsh, Kendall, Park; Kelly, Kearns, Beever-Jones.
After saying she would use the final games of the year to experiment, Sarina Wiegman opted for a fairly strong XI against China. Today, a few newer faces start with only Only Moorhouse, Le Tissier, Bronze and Walsh keep their places from the weekend’s starting lineup.
Ghana XI (4-2-3-1): Conlan; Simon, Boakye, Ama Duah, Yeboah; Cudjoe, Asantewaa; Kusi, Boye-Hlorkah, Nyamekye; Boaduwaa.
Simon makes her debut for Ghana after an allegiance swap from France with the long serving captain Boakye starting alongside her. Achiaa makes a return but is only fit enough the bench. Boaduwaa, the reigning Ghanian female footballer of the year, scored four goals during her side’s two games at the last international break and will hope to add to that tally.
Preamble
Two days ago England hammered China 8-0 at Wembley in what proved to be a relatively easy test and Sarina Wiegman’s side will hope to close out 2025 in similar fashion against Ghana in Southampton.
The Black Queens come to St. Mary’s in good form, beating Egypt 7-0 on aggregate in a two-leg 2026 Afcon qualifier after coming in third in this summer’s edition. Their head coach is Kim Björkegren, the Swede most recently managing Racing Louisville in the NWSL.
Team news coming up shortly before the 7pm GMT kick-off. As always, feel free to get in touch with your questions, comments, thoughts, predictions via email. And since this is England’s last match of the year, send over your favourite Lioness goal, assist, block, save or overall moment of 2025. Plenty to choose from!
