Chloe Kelly scores winning spot-kick in penalty shootout of unbearable drama as the Lionesses beat Spain in the Euro 2025 final
England 1-1 (pens 3-1) Spain (Russo 57′ | Caldentey 25′)
ST JAKOB-PARK — Vengeance. Valour. Victory. The English are never, ever done. For four more years, they will sing that they are champions of Europe. With another agonising triumph on penalties over Spain they have conquered the unthinkable and conquered a continent once again.
The first England team ever to win two major tournaments, including one on foreign soil, they are history-makers, record-breakers, each one a hero in their own right.
The sight of Hannah Hampton’s stops, of Chloe Kelly’s hop-and-skip final spot-kick, will last the ages. Basel’s theatre of European dreams delivered one of the great finals in the one nobody believed England could win. The one in which more glory felt unfathomable, except to Sarina Wiegman’s band of double-winners. As they like to say: Never down, never out.
As Kelly’s penalty hit the net, Wiegman raced across the pitch draped in a red-and-white scarf. Michelle Agyemang danced onto the stage to collect her Young Player of the Tournament award as her comrades screeched her new chant.
Leah Williamson roared with relief after her missed effort. Beth Mead will not remember the scuffed shot that and saved retake that kickstarted another shootout of insanity.
They will recall only the characteristic, relentless belief and sheer bloody-mindedness that was on show in abundance in another unabating fight-back.
The fairytale was perfect, except for how it started. Mariona Caldentey steered away from Lucy Bronze, Lauren James and Georgia Stanway slumping into a stroll as Ona Batlle delivered her cross. So inevitable did it feel that England’s midfield would at first be quashed by the potency of Aitana Bonmati, Alexia Putellas and Patri Guijarro, and that the decision to start James would backfire as she was forced off after 40 minutes.
Bonmati was named player of a tournament she so nearly missed through meningitis – much of the best is still yet to come for an excellent Spanish side.
Yet much like the rest of England’s success, Wiegman’s finishers are at risk of being taken for granted. We knew it could happen the moment Kelly stepped foot on the pitch and still few dared to properly believe. There are few footballers in the world with a track record like her at this tournament for changing a game.
Like an apparition from above, she appeared just when England needed her most and out of nowhere, cut open the centre-backs with a piercing cross to find Alessia Russo for the equaliser.
When the history of this summer is written, it will be one of English blood, sweat and tears – in the case of Hampton, quite literally, a modern-day bandaged Terry Butcher who has been catapulted into the limelight. In normal time, she kept England alive, thwarting Claudia Pina and Esther Gonzalez. In the final throes, she secured her place as a Lionesses legend.
So too did Jess Carter, her remarkable 90th and 120th minute blocks just the latest testament to the tremendous character that has shone through over the past four weeks.
Bronze also epitomised England’s refusal to give up when she revealed after the match that she had played through the entire tournament with a fractured tibia. Fittingly, her middle name is Tough.
At every final whistle along the way, Wiegman’s message has been the same: “We’re not going home!” Now England board the plane with more silverware and most juicily of all, an emphatic finger to the lips of their critics. In a spectacular summer of manic thrills and extraordinary comebacks, they will have won an army of new sympathisers and even more die-hards.
Michelle Mania will now grip the nation. Kelly “calm” celebrations will be wheeled out in playgrounds and parks across the country.
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After all, what was anybody worried about? To think Wiegman was asked on the eve of this tournament if her team was in “crisis” after losing Mary Earps, Millie Bright and Fran Kirby. Instead, she took 23 players to Switzerland who poured every ounce of themselves into making history – and producing a day English football will never forget.
All that was left was for England’s players to slump to the floor. There were tears on the pitch and in the stands. When it mattered most, it does not get much more “proper English” than that, the motto of this camp which has spurred them on. These Lionesses have consistently redefined what it means to wear the badge without show, only with pride and tenacity.
In that famous summer of 2022, the women’s game went to bed in darkness one July day and woke up in colour the next. What England have just achieved can be even more momentous. Williamson vowed that day of manic thrills at Wembley was just the start, no “flash in the pan”. It looks like the glare of these resplendent Lionesses can never be snuffed out.
