‘Our fans gave us a lot of inspiration’: England boss Sarina Wiegman calls on fans support

England boss Sarina Wiegman has called on supporters to roar her side to victory as the Lionesses look to end their semi-final curse against Sweden at Bramall Lane tonight.

The last three major tournaments have all ended in defeat at this stage but Wiegman insists England aren’t dwelling on the past as they bid to book their place in the Euros final at Wembley.

‘It’s necessary to be in the now,’ Wiegman said. ‘You always have to learn from the experience and take out the things it takes to become better, to learn. But it’s no use now to talk about that all the time.

England boss Sarina Wiegman has called on supporters to roar the Lionesses to victory

‘The team are ready to play the best game against Sweden and hopefully inspire the nation.

‘I think it’s going to be a very tight game. They are No 2 in the FIFA rankings. We know they’ve performed really well over the last years, they’ve always performed well.

‘Reaching the semi-final has been really great already. We saw that we brought a lot of inspiration but I think our fans gave us a lot of inspiration, too.

‘I hope they’re going to bring us lots of energy again. It was really an extra dimension, what we had at our last games. That’s really exciting and we hope we’re going to make them proud again.’

The Lionesses are expecting a tough game against No.2 ranked Sweden in the semi-finals

There will be live screenings of England’s semi-final in Trafalgar Square and various fan parks up and down the country. Millie Bright, who played in England’s last two semi-final defeats, revealed the support from the home crowd has been crucial. ‘It’s the response we’ve been looking for and that we’ve wanted in the women’s game,’ she said. ‘In this tournament, the crowd has been unbelievable.

‘It shows the growth of the game and the direction we want to continue in.’

While a calm Wiegman and Bright batted away questions on the importance of tonight’s match, Sweden came out firing as they criticised UEFA for their use of VAR at the tournament.

Peter Gerhardsson’s side had goals disallowed for offside against Switzerland and Belgium, but Swedish former referee Jonas Eriksson claimed the VAR lines had been drawn incorrectly.

Mille Bright (No. 6) drilled home the importance of fan support during the tournament

‘If you’re talking about the complaint that our staff made it’s obvious, we haven’t seen it ourselves but a Swedish referee at home in a studio pointed out that they drew the line incorrectly,’ Gerhardsson said.

‘My feeling is sometimes we put too much trust in VAR, you don’t know until the ref whistles “game on” if it’s a goal or not. ‘We’re going to have to hope that they’ve looked at improving themselves for the semi-final.’

Sweden also claimed that UEFA are using half as many cameras as they do in men’s football.

Their star forward Kosovare Asllani said: ‘Using 50 per cent fewer cameras in our tournament than in the men’s game, that’s a catastrophe really because the decisions can’t be made with the same precision.

‘So it’s not just for us, there are other teams. There are situations where you should have more cameras and it can be really decisive.’

Ella Toone scored the equalising goal for England during the quarter-final against Spain