England vs Germany LIVE: Lionesses team news and line-ups as Hannah Hampton starts

Germany have a new manager ahead of Euro 2025 and boss Christian Wück will take charge of his first game tonight. He was previously in charge of Germany’s youth teams and led Germany’s men’s Under-17s to the World Cup last year.

He now takes charge of a Germany squad that won bronze at the Paris Olympics this summer, beating Spain in the bronze medal match after defeat to eventual champions the United States in the semi-final.

Wück takes charge at a difficult time, however. Legendary striker and capain Alexandra Popp is set to retire after Monday’s match against Australia, while veterans Marina Hegering and Merle Frohms have also called time on their careers.

Germany have also been hit by injuries and will be missing Bayern Munich’s Lea Schüller and Lena Oberdorf.

Lauren James was forced to withdraw from England’s squad after picking up a calf injury in Chelsea’s win over FC Twente in the Champions League earlier this month. The forward is recovering at Cobham but Chelsea head coach said she could be out for as much as “five to six weeks” – which may rule her out of the next international break as well.

James has not played for England since April’s win over Republic of Ireland and missed the previous two international windows due to injury as well.

“We want her to be fit, that’s the main thing,” Wiegman said. “Unfortunately she’s injured and she’s working on her recovery.

“She’s in a great environment at her club and as soon as she gets minutes she’ll show quality because that’s the quality Chelsea play at. Then we’ll see how she can fit into the team.”

Hannah Hampton starts in goal for England, while Millie Bright is Leah Williamson’s centre-half partner.

England XI: Hampton; Bronze, Bright, Williamson, Carter; Walsh, Stanway, Toone; Mead, Russo, Hemp.

Sarina Wiegman said she is sure Thomas Tuchel will give everything to bring success to England and end the men’s team’s trophy drought just as she did for the women’s side.

Tuchel was appointed England manager last week ahead of the 2026 World Cup and the German will become the third non-English coach to take charge of the men’s team.

Wiegman led the Lionesses to Euro 2022 glory at Wembley and the Dutch coach has been celebrated for helping transform the women’s game in England since her appointment in 2021.

Tuchel replaced Gareth Southgate after his eight-year spell in charge and the former Chelsea and Bayern Munich boss said he was “sorry I have a German passport” at his unveiling.

Tuchel said he was “proud” to be England manager and added he hoped to convince critics who believe an English coach should lead the national team that nationality did not matter.

England’s Euro 2022 final win against Germany was at a sold-out Wembley and there have been further record crowds for fixtures against the United States and Brazil in the Finalissa, but Friday is set to bring a decrease with 54,000 tickets sold.

Wiegman and Williamson said the attendance is still an impressive marker of how far the Lionesses have come since before the Euros and the crowd is expected to be bigger ahead of the United States match next month.

“It’s a real positive we play at Wembley twice with over 100,000 people coming to the stadium,” Wiegman said.

“Of course Wembley can have more people, so hopefully more people can come but we are thinking big and having the opportunity for people to come to the game, we are happy with the amount of people coming to the game.”

Williamson added: “If you take the perspective of playing two games at Wembley so close to each other a few years ago it wouldn’t have happened – 54,000 is still a lot more than most countries will host.

“We have a vision, we have always dreamt the biggest but it’s a step in the right direction and hopefully the way we play tomorrow will bring more people for the next games – that’s our job.”

Sarina Wiegman was asked on how far England have progressed since their Euros victory. The Lionesses reached the Women’s World Cup final the following year, depiste missing several players due to injury, but results and performances have been mixed since.

“You always want to develop faster. The game has increased, the level of the league has increased, meaning international football has too,” Wiegman said.

“There is some transition in our team, the more experienced players are trying to help, and the main thing is we know where we want to be on July 2.

“The start of that is tomorrow evening and we want to play top-level opponents to find out where we are at. It’s really important to have this game against a top-level team to try out things to get information about where we are at and our individuals moving forward.”