Lionesses bounce back from being on brink of Euros heartbreak to send fans wild
The Lionesses have beaten Sweden in a nail-biting penalty shootout to secure their place in the Euros semi-finals.
It was a sensational comeback for the England Women who went from being two goals down to equalising with just 10 minutes left on the clock.
The stadium was a cacophony of Sweden's defiant chants competing with the 'c'mon England' war cries from the fans in red white and blue.
And as the Lionesses became one step closer to keeping their title 'champions of Europe', the barmy army were arm in arm in the stands as they belted out Sweet Caroline.
Paul Thompson, 41, who had driven to Zurich with his son Adrian, 16, from Nottingham, said: "I think we will be singing Sweet Caroline all night and dancing."
George Tutty, Eastbourne, said: "Being away from home soil, you wonder if the fans are going to come or not but when you touch down here in Switzerland you can see they're here in force.
"I struggle to stay quiet in any match but I think I've lost my voice after that so I'll need some hot honey to get ready for the next game."
Eleven minutes before the final whistle, an England heartbreak seemed almost certain when they were still 2-0 down 79 minutes in.
But then just 120 seconds later the Lionesses had equalised thanks to two rocket shots from Lucy Bronze and Lioness cub Michelle Agyemang.
The 19-year-old who was once a Wembley ball girl is now England's youngest player and cemented in history as a red, white and blue hero.
As she fell to her knees and roared with pride, the stadium erupted with every single fan brought to their feet in disbelief.
And it was again Bronze, 33, who helped her team romp to victory when she scored the winning penalty, leaving the final score 2-2 (2-3).
Claire Wenman, 33, from Bristol, said: "I'm delighted. I'll be dancing and singing into the night and going into the centre with friends to see where the night takes us. I was quite nervous before the match because Sweden are a tight team but now they're out of the way I think we will make it to the final.
"The atmosphere tonight has been electric, I feel immensely proud to be English."
Shannon Brunskill, 29, Newcastle, said: "I've only missed the France game so far, it was the right game to miss and I feel like I've been a good luck charm after watching them win like that.
"I'll be running around the pub doing a Chloe Kelly celebration with my top off and swinging it round my head. I think I'll be in a state tomorrow."
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NBC News
an hour ago
- NBC News
Bonmatí leads Spain past Germany 1-0, sets up Euro 2025 final against England
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Times
2 hours ago
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What if the England DNA is just never giving up?
In 2014 the FA introduced a set of principles that aimed to define the core characteristics of the England teams and profile the future players who would people them, calling it the 'England DNA'. The decade since then has brought the emergence of a new, technically adept cohort of male and female players. More importantly, both the England men's and women's teams have taken a significant step forward in terms of tournament performance, reaching four finals between them — with a fifth to come on Sunday — of which one was unforgettably won by the Lionesses at Wembley in 2022. These are times that England fans feel grateful to be living through. If you were going to be ultra-critical, though, you'd focus on precisely that idea of England DNA: that shared double-thread which intertwines men's and women's teams and tells us everything we need to know about what an England team looks like, how they play, what their idea of football is. You could probably count on one hand the number of tournament games, even in this era of unprecedented success, where either team has convincingly demonstrated an identity, a way of playing, with the same force or confidence with which Spain — England's biggest rival as the great dual power of the present era — enact their brand of football. Tuesday night's game against Italy was a case in point. There were mitigating circumstances for the Lionesses' rather disjointed and reactive performances against France and Sweden. France was their first tournament game without Millie Bright, Mary Earps and Fran Kirby, with new players bedding in, and Sweden pressed England hard and scored in the second minute: it's a pretty hard ask to serenely impose your style of football in those circumstances. But against Italy, you might have expected more from Sarina Wiegman 's team. They were playing opponents with less quality and far less experience at this level, who for the first half an hour were just trying to feel their way into the occasion. This was exactly the sort of situation where you would expect the superior team, the one playing their fifth straight semi-final, to set the tone and tempo of the match, play their natural game, give a confident exhibition of the way they play. England offered very little of that. Watching them, I had the familiar feeling of finding it hard to discern what they were actually trying to do, the collective joined-up idea of how they intended to create, control and defend. The flip side, of course, is that there was so much to admire in the way England came back. This is a team who never know they're beaten. Once again, in adversity, we saw the best of them. For character, mentality and resilience, England's performance could not be faulted, but it's also worth putting a bit of emphasis on their composure and execution. For the equaliser, Lauren Hemp delivered a superb whipped-in cross to the near post, and Michelle Agyemang finished brilliantly, taking a perfect first touch and then drilling the shot low and hard through the legs of Elena Linari and Laura Giuliani. Given the desperation of the situation, those were moments of exceptional quality. But to be honest, I'm not sure we expected anything less. These Lionesses have thoroughly earned our confidence in their capacity to keep going until the very last second and more often than not, somehow, just find a way. We've seen them do it many times before, after all. Not only could they easily have lost to Sweden in Zurich, they gritted their way past Nigeria and Colombia at the last World Cup, and scored an 84th-minute equaliser against Spain en route to the trophy in 2022. To listen to the players after the Italy game, speaking about the confidence they felt that they could do it again, even as the clock ticked past 95 minutes, was to understand that once a team have done this often enough, that belief, that collective memory, compounds so powerfully that it becomes almost a self-fulfilling prophecy. 'Whilst there are seconds on the clock,' Leah Williamson said, 'it's less 'if' and more 'how'.' I don't think it's mere laziness to draw the comparison with the England men's team: the parallels are obvious. At Euro 2024 in particular, Gareth Southgate's team were often dreadfully inert and lacking in ideas when given the blank slate of a goalless scoreboard and an opponent they were expected to beat: think of the match against Slovenia and the start of the matches against Slovakia and Switzerland. They were not good at dictating games. But give them a desperate situation to react to, and the true quality of the team revealed itself. When Dan Ashworth — then the FA's director of elite development, but now its chief football officer — came up with the England DNA, it was with a vision of formulating a distinct play style in mind. 'As a football nation we have long been characterised by our passion, fighting spirit and effort,' he said. 'Although there are aspects of these characteristics we wish to retain, we do not wish to be solely defined by them.' Bronze, right, and Mead recover in the cryotherapy chamber after a second consecutive game that went to extra time… LIONESSES But where Ashworth had hoped a higher English style would articulate itself, there remains a kind of blank space, one the Lionesses players at this tournament have filled with their evocation of 'proper England': meaning, pretty much, playing with passion, fighting spirit and effort. And yet, there are a few common things which run through the recent exploits of the two national teams. If you had to sum them up, you would probably say: winning duels. Maximising set pieces. Working until the absolute last second and leaving nothing out on the pitch. And pinning the performance on the skill, swagger and determination of individuals rather than an orchestrated tactical masterplan. The question is: is this enough? Does all this constitute an identity in its own right, or is it a poor substitute for one, a scant, bare-minimum ethos which exists in the vacuum where England's answer to Spain's possession-based, positional style ought to be? It's easy to lean towards the latter — and it will be especially so if Sunday brings the spectacle of Spain beating England in a major final for a third year in a row. But when I spoke to the Euro '96 champion Marco Bode last year about Germany's golden era from the 1970s to the mid-Nineties, he advanced the view that the success of those Germany teams was built on work rate, solid temperament and above all, the ability to respond to difficult moments and solve problems. It strikes me that those aren't so different from the virtues which define the England teams now. The reality is there is no English equivalent of Italy's catenaccio, Germany's gegenpressing, Spain's juego de posición, the Cruyff school of the Netherlands. The attempt to define and invent one was nobly intentioned and may bear fruit one day, but right now still feels like a work in progress. And if there's one cardinal lesson which international football teaches us, it's that you can't wish into existence what you don't have; you can only make the best of what you do. England v Spain
BBC News
4 hours ago
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We meet again - England & Spain set for 'amazing' Euro 2025 final
England were heartbroken two years ago - but now they will get their shot at extra-time victory over Germany means they will face the Lionesses in Sunday's Euro 2025 final. It's a repeat of the 2023 World Cup final - which Spain were the two best sides in the world 24 months ago and they remain the best two sides in Europe now."It's going to be incredible," said former England forward Ellen White, part of the side who beat Germany in the Euro 2022 final. "It's a one-off game. On England's day they can beat anyone, on Spain's day they can beat anyone, so that match-up is so amazing to see."I'm so excited."While this eye-catching Spanish side look to complete a treble of major trophies, having also won the Nations League in 2024, England are bidding to defend their European crown."I'm just so buzzing for the girls," added ex-Lionesses captain Steph Houghton. "There's no reason, with the squad that we have, that we can't go and beat Spain."So which way will it go? What does history tell us? And what's changed since that World Cup final? Painful memories for England... Having won their first women's major tournament 13 months earlier with victory over Germany at Euro 2022, England had high hopes of backing that up against Spain in wasn't to Lionesses, looking to become the first senior England side since the men's team in 1966 to win a World Cup, were outplayed by a Spanish side full of flair and captain Olga Carmona slotted the winner past goalkeeper Mary Earps in the first half, capitalising after England's Lucy Bronze lost possession in a repeat be likely on Sunday? Not beat the world champions at Wembley in February - the last team to do so - although Spain won their most recent meeting 2-1 on 3 Lionesses' overall record in the fixture is also decent, losing just five of 19 competitive fixtures."I don't think England will see themselves as underdogs - they're European champions," former England defender Fara Williams said on BBC One."Yes, Spain beat them in the World Cup final but this is their trophy. They've got to hand it over and they're not going to want to do that. They're not going to lie down and make it easy for Spain."I think they know they can beat Spain."Houghton agrees."I don't think the [World Cup final] will be in the back of England's minds," she told BBC Radio 5 Live. "This is a fresh slate and there are a lot of new players." What's changed since 2023? Seven of the 11 who started against Spain in the World Cup final were in England's line-up for Tuesday's win over there have been big changes within the Lionesses squad since then too - some as recently as the 10 days leading up to Wiegman's squad announcement last month, she had two senior international retirements and the withdrawal of her World Cup captain to contend goalkeeper Mary Earps announced her shock international retirement, then midfielder Fran Kirby followed suit a week later and, on the eve of the squad's confirmation, Millie Bright made herself unavailable for herself described it as "a new era and a new England team", with players like super-sub Michelle Agyemang only capped for the first time this something this "new" England side will have to deal with is pressure, according to Williams."I think the Lionesses carry a lot of pressure," she said. "In terms of growing the game in England, we're still reliant on the Lionesses doing well - they never had that pressure in 2022, but they had it in the World Cup final and they have it now." Spain, meanwhile, have a familiar feel to their squad - albeit they are now led by a different manager in Montse was Jorge Vilda's assistant in 2023, meaning the coaching setup and philosophy has remained much the d'Or Feminine holder and semi-final matchwinner Aitana Bonmati remains - despite a pre-tournament bout of viral meningitis - while Alexia Putellas, also a two-time Ballon d'Or winner, continues to shine having started the World Cup final on the Gonzalez, an unused substitute in 2023, has been one of the stars of Euro 2025 and is on course to win the Golden Jenni Hermoso, who missed a penalty in that final, is a notable receiving her World Cup winner's medal, Hermoso was kissed by Spain's former football federation boss Luis Rubiales without her said the kiss was consensual, but in February was found guilty of sexual assault by Spain's top criminal court, and ordered to pay a fine of 10,800 euros (£8,942). Did England learn anything from the semi-finals? England boss Wiegman must come up with a gameplan to stifle a Spain side used to bossing the ball and controlling the had nearly 67% possession in their semi-final win over Germany - but it wasn't always straightforward."I feel like we saw for the first time a Spanish team play with frustration at times," said Williams. "That's not like them."They are patient in what they do and they trust in what they do. They were forced to go direct at times."We did see a different side to them. This is the only game in the competition they have faced a real challenge, an intense game. In terms of that level that is needed in a final, Germany gave them that today, so they will be thankful for this game."Ex-Germany defender Josie Henning says the key battle will be in midfield."With the midfield of Spain, you have to decide if you want to play up against them or around them," she said on BBC One. "I think Germany showed a little bit that if you press them collectively, it works."
