England aiming to break semi-final curse against Sweden at Bramall Lane

England will aim to break their semi-final curse when they face Sweden at Bramall Lane on Tuesday for a place in the Women’s Euro final.

The hosts progressed to the last four with a hard-fought extra-time victory over Spain last week, while Sweden beat Belgium 1-0.

Here, the PA news agency takes a look at the build-up to the first semi-final of the week.

Sarina Wiegman led her native Netherlands to Euros success on home soil in 2017 and is aiming to take England to their first major trophy this time around.

England have lost in the semi-finals at each of their last three major tournaments – including losing to Wiegman’s Netherlands five years ago, as well as at the World Cups of 2019 and 2015.

But, when asked about those previous last-four exits, Wiegman – in charge of England since last September – said: “I think it’s necessary to be in the now.

“I do think you always have to learn from your experience and take out the things that you can take, to become better and learn.

“But it’s no use now to talk about that all the time, because it’s now, it is now. So why should we talk about that all the time?”

Sweden have called into question the effectiveness of the video assistant referee at Euro 2022.

Stand-in captain Kosovare Asllani criticised UEFA for “using 50 per cent fewer cameras” at the women’s European Championship than the men’s, labelling the situation a “catastrophe”.

Peter Gerhardsson’s side have had five goals ruled out through VAR en route to the semi-finals and lodged a complaint over the decision to disallow Rebecka Blomqvist’s goal for offside during their 2-1 win over Switzerland on July 13.

“Using 50 per cent fewer cameras in our tournament than the men’s game, that is a catastrophe really,” Asllani said.