England have nothing to prove after booking Euro 2025 final spot

Yahoo

4 days ago

Lucy Bronze insisted England had nothing to prove after booking their place in the Euro 2025 final with a dramatic 2-1 comeback victory over Italy in Geneva.
The defending champions were the heavy favourites in the semi-final, but it took another tournament-saving late equaliser from 19-year-old substitute Michelle Agyemang and Chloe Kelly's extra-time winner to ensure England would fight on.
The Lionesses' never-say-die attitude has elicited plenty of deserved praise, but opening their tournament with a loss to France, then twice eking out knockout victories from the brink of elimination, has also sparked concern about England's ability to overcome their toughest challenge yet – a meeting with either Spain or Germany for the title.
'I think people from the outside think teams have to win every single game,' defender Bronze said.
'I think people talk about consistency with this England team, we've done six consecutive semi-finals, three consecutive finals, who else has done that? Nobody.
'You know, Spain and Germany are fantastic teams, even they haven't managed that feat.
'It's hard to stay at the top in international football, so many teams, they have performances, then it's up and down, they develop, but this team just keeps fighting until the end.
'I feel like we didn't have anything to prove because we've been there, we've done it many, many times.
'It's just the fact that the game's getting better, international football's not as easy as it used to be. Everybody's fighting and everyone wants to win and everyone feels like they can win.'
Bronze, featuring in her seventh major tournament at 33, is the oldest and most experienced member of Sarina Wiegman's squad in Switzerland.
She was full of praise for Agyemang – the youngest – who has now scored three times in her first four England appearances since making her debut in April, including a critical late equaliser in their Sweden quarter-final.
The teenager was also inches away from netting a winner on Tuesday night when she clipped the crossbar late in extra-time.
Bronze said: 'She's a little bit of the unknown and she brings something different to her other strikers and our attackers, which maybe other teams aren't used to playing against – especially in an England shirt.
'So I think it gives her a lot of confidence and the team give her a lot of freedom, Sarina does.
'We want her to be confident and just play good football and try and score goals. When she scored the first one, we were like, 'go and do it again'. And you saw that in the rest of the game.
'She was going on by herself, she had two or three good runs in extra-time where she was like, 'I'm going to take this team to the final'. It's amazing to see and I think that gives the rest of the team confidence.'
Wiegman has now led teams to five straight major tournament finals – the first head coach to do so in either the men's or women's game.
The Dutchwoman, who has guided England to three in a row, hopes Sunday's showpiece is not left to the last minute and her side take an early lead.
'I would really like to go up at the beginning of the match and stay up,' Wiegman said. 'We prepare for every scenario, but we don't say 'let's get behind and then score at the end of the game'.
'That's not part of the game plan, but it shows that if we get behind, we're not done and we will fight to score a goal.'