England's Casey Stoney underlines importance of beating Scotland in Euro 2017 opener
Thursday 25 May 2017 17:33, UK
Casey Stoney admits England Women's Euro 2017 opener against Scotland is a grudge match.
While the men's teams meet in a World Cup qualifier at Hampden Park in little over a fortnight, Stoney and her team-mates have their attention firmly focused on their own clash with Scotland, in Utrecht on July 19.
Chelsea's Scotland international midfielder Erin Cuthbert told Sky Sports earlier this month she thinks the showdown will be "a real battle" - and former England skipper Stoney is also expecting the contest to be a fiery affair.
"Let's be honest, Scotland don't like us and they always want to beat us and it adds an extra edge to the game," she said.
"It's important that we win that game. You always want to start well and if we can win the group it just makes the tournament a little bit easier in terms of the draw and moving forward."
England also play Spain and Portugal in Group D of this summer's tournament, and the matches cannot come soon enough for Stoney.
"Do you know what? I genuinely can't wait to get going now," the Liverpool Ladies defender said.
"We've got a very long prep camp and we know it's going to be a lot of hard work, but if you put the hard yards in, the prep and the discipline, hopefully come July it'll pay off and we can win games of football.
"We've got a real belief within our camp that we can go there and do very well. We won a bronze in the World Cup and we want to go better than that: we want to win this tournament."
Stoney, speaking as she launched a McDonald's campaign to find mascots for England and Scotland, added: "Every tournament we see as an opportunity to inspire people, to change perceptions and to keep changing the game we love."
