Little MixFATV / YouTube

Little Mix lead campaign to support England women at European Championship

Popular girl group Little Mix are leading the campaign to support the England women's team as they prepare to kick off at this summer's European Championship.

The Lionesses will play their first match of the competition in the Netherlands on July 19, when they take on rivals Scotland in Group D.

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Spain and Portugal also stand between Mark Sampson's team and the knockout stage and the FA have teamed up with Little Mix to 'Salute the Lionesses' with a re-release of their hit single 'Salute'.

The video features cameos from a number of the women's team's top players as well as men's internationals Joe Hart, Marcus Rashford, Gary Cahill and Jamie Vardy.

"When we wrote Salute we wanted to convey a message of all women being united, something we know all fans are when supporting England," Little Mix said. "Being England fans ourselves, we jumped at the chance for Salute to help unify support for the Lionesses.

"The World Cup a few years ago was massive for the Lionesses and they have smashed it since so hopefully the support will help them go all the way this summer."

England endured a disappointing Euro 2013, going out in the group stage without winning a game, but earned a third-place finish at the Women's World Cup two years ago and beat the side currently ranked No.1 in the world, the USA, earlier this year.

Sampson will have veterans such as captain Steph Houghton and midfielder Fara Williams to call upon as England look to repeat or better their performance at this tournament in 2009, when they were beaten finalists.

Germany have won the European Championship five times in a row and are favourites for the title once again, though many expect a strong France team to run them close.

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England and Sweden, who will have to face Germany in the group stage, are joint-third favourites and will be hoping to cause an upset.

The final of the tournament will be played on August 6 at De Grolsch Veste in Enschede, the 30,000-capacity home stadium of Eredivisie club FC Twente.

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