ENLGAND ARE IN THE FINAL!!!!

Tuesday 26th July 2022: Bramall Lane, Sheffield: UEFA Women’s Euro 2022 Semi-Final:
England vs Sweden

So I can stop pinching myself now, this is real. England’s Women are in the UEFA Women’s Euro 2022 final at Wembley on Sunday. I had some trouble making it too the game thanks to issues on the trains and the weather in Sheffield was abysmal before kick-off, but once the match got underway all these problems were forgotten as I settled into my place amongst the 28,264 supporters crammed into the stands for this on. That is a record attendance for a Women’s Euro semi-final and they were about to be treated to an exhibition of football from this incredible England team.

Sweden looked to be a difficult test on paper coming into this one and having finished first in a group that included the defending champions, The Netherlands, it seemed like they were going to convert their potential from paper to grass. They had made the knockout stages of the last two major international tournaments, coming unstuck against the Dutch in both, and with England having only won twice against them in their last 9 meetings the signs that they would go one step further this time around looked promising. They had even defeated England in the 3rd place play off at the 2019 World Cup.

There are only a few small problems with those signs though as Sweden had struggled in-front of goal against Belgium in the Quarter-final. Creating chances was not a problem for the Scandinavians as they pulled the Belgian defence all over the place, it was finishing off those chances that proved elusive. They had 33 shots against the Belgians but only 9 of them were on target and it took until the 92nd minute for them to finally make the breakthrough. Such profligacy was not punished by the Belgians, but you can rest assured it would be by the English.

This England team came into the match having scored 15 goals in just 4 matches, including the record-breaking 8 against Norway, and had at their disposal 3 of the most clinical finishers in the Women’s game. Ellen White is their talismanic number 9 and, having already scored twice in the tournament, she came into this game knowing that 1 more goal would draw her level with Wayne Rooney as England’s top goalscorer of all time.

It’s not just White that the Swedish backline would have to worry about either as England also have Beth Mead and Alessia Russo to call on, amongst a plethora of attacking options. Mead has been on fire in-front of goal and already had 5 goals to her name coming into this match, as she saunters her way to the Golden Boot, whilst Russo has 3 goals to her name despite having to be content with merely 2nd half substitute appearances throughout the tournament so far.

The worst news was yet to come for Sweden though as in England’s dugout they have their best secret weapon of the lot, Sarina Wiegman. She is the coach that defeated Sweden, as Netherlands’ Coach, in the last 2 tournaments. Wiegman is also the defending Euro championship coach, having won it with her native Netherlands in 2017, and one of the ways she achieves this success is by finding her best 11 and sticking to it. This formula has worked for Wiegman so well that, despite Russo’s sparkling form off the bench, she named an unchanged team from the one that came from behind to defeat Spain in the Quarters.

With all those factors in mind there were many in the press and amongst the fans in the stadium who had written Sweden off and assumed that all England had to do was turn up and they’d win easily. I was among them as when asked by other fans before the match what I thought the score would be, “We will win by 3 or 4 goals to nil” came my cocky response.

However, Sweden almost wiped the smug smile off our faces within 30 seconds of kick-off as Stina Blackstenius tore forward in acres of space on the left. She fed the ball through to Sofia Jakobsson, charging free in the box, but her shot across goal was saved by the feet of an ever-alert Mary Earps. Earps went straight from making the save to screaming at her defence to switch on.

Sweden let England off the hook in a huge way in those opening seconds and this allowed England to secure a foothold in the game. The hosts cranked up the pressure on their opponents through the rest of the opening 5 minutes until they created an opening that should have led to the opening goal. Fran Kirby found the space on the left to put a tempting cross into the area that missed Mead’s head by inches. Mead had managed to find a lovely pocket of space in the box and it the cross had been dropped on the right sixpence she would have had a free header to open England’s account for the night.

Within 2 minutes of this chance England were back on the attack down the left. This time it was Lauren Hemp advancing with the ball to the edge of the box before being pushed off it by a Swedish defender. From my vantage point it looked like a clear free-kick but the referee was content to let play continue uninterrupted and there were no appeals from the England players either, so perhaps my view was not telling the full story of the challenge. Hemp dealt with this challenge exceptionally well as just seconds later she was on her feet and delivering a cross into the area, where it was grabbed off White’s forehead by Hedvig Lindahl, the Sweden goalkeeper.

Sweden were not going away easily though and in the 11th minute they found the opening they would use to create chances throughout the match. Lucy Bronze was caught out of position at right back and the Swedes were able to find the ball into the vast open spaces behind her. This time Blackstenius was the player in yellow running free as a gazelle in this savannah of grass but her shot was easy enough for Earps to deal with. The resulting corner was far missed by Earps altogether though and the English could only look in stomach-clenching terror as a Swedish header sent the ball goalward. The terror was broken as the ball came cannoning back off the bar, but Sweden now knew where the weak link was in the England back-line.

Rolfo was next to exploit this defensive weakness having nicked the ball off Bronze in midfield. She galloped into the free space that Bronze should have been covering but, to a collective sigh of relief from all 4 stands, she was only able to direct her shot into the side netting.

Sweden may have been looking to spoil the host’s party but England didn’t seem to be doing too much to try and stop them in the first 15 minutes. Perhaps this was down to the nerves of playing in-front of an expectant home crowd but, whatever the case may have been, they appeared scared to attack despite creating some excellent openings.

Mead found a brilliant ball up to Kirby just inside the Sweden half. She had one defender to beat and then she would have been 1-on-1 with Lindahl, albeit 40 yards from the goal, but instead of taking on the defender she stopped and turned to look for support. By the time the support arrived all the impetus of the attack had fizzled out. The next big opening for the hosts came via Bronze finding legions of room on the right wing. She was screaming for the ball, but the ball was instead ping-ponged around the other wing for a while before finally being played out to her.

Once the ball finally makes it’s way to her a great bit of attacking interplay between Bronze and Mead results in an England corner on the left-hand side. The corner was headed wide by White, but at least England were finally finding ways to threaten the Swedish goal in what had been an extremely entertaining end-to-end encounter for the purist to enjoy so far.

Both teams were finding ways to make their opponents defences creak in the opening half hour of the match. Sweden were finding crosses to be their greatest weapon but, as with the Belgium game. the ruthless final touch was deserting them. They had inviting crosses from either side within seconds of another as the math passed the 25 minute mark. First Rolfo swung one in from the left that sailed thorough the corridor of uncertainty utterly untouched. Then the cross from the right was agonisingly high over the top of a leaping Blackstenius in the centre.

England’s defending was creaking loudly from crosses into the box, but it was creaking even more from Sweden’s corners. They were causing all sorts of problems for England. After the Swedish header off the bar earlier in the match England looked spooked every time the ball came in from the quadrant. This got to the point where just before the half hour mark England took 5 attempts to hack the ball clear of their 6 yard box despite the box in question being a completely Sweden-free zone. The hosts needed something to settle their nerves and as the half moved into it’s final 15 minutes that is exactly what they would get.

They came close to getting it on the 30 minute mark as Mead looped a ball into Bronze near the penalty spot. Bronze leaps like a salmon to meet it, whilst everyone around her stays statuesque like their feet are stuck in treacle, but her header misses the left post by a measly 6 yards. A simple role reversal was all that was need for England to get the opening goal as Mead did what she does best and pocketed her 6th goal of the tournament to set England on their way.

Mead’s 6th goal of the tournament and England’s opener in this semi-final came after a Hemp cross from the left, that skimmed past the out-stretched boot of White in the 6yard box, was fired back into the box by Bronze. Her pinpoint cross found Mead in space by the penalty spot. Mead swivelled on a sixpence and fired it home with her right boot. Lindahl dived to her right but the ball flashed past her fingertips and England have the lead in the Semi-final in the 34th minute.

When the ball hit the back of the net the stands exploded with a wall of noise the like of which I have never experienced before at a women’s football match. It was an outpouring of euphoria, and not a little relief, that England now had the lead and could push on from here to their first final appearance in 13 years. Sweden’s players looked crushed by this blow against the general run of play for much of the half up to this point. Their heads dropped and you could see the hope expiring in their souls. Having already been knocked out by the hosts at the last Euros they seemed to know what lay instore for them from now till the final whistle.

High on the joy of taking the lead England almost doubled it within minutes as Bronze and Mead combined to make space on the right before Mead pulled it back to Georgia Stanway in tons of space down the right channel. Stanway had space to take a shot herself, but instead she chose to make the selfless move and put it on a plate for White to equal Rooney’s record. Unfortunately the ball across was turned back by the Swedish centre backs and when Stanway tried to go for goal herself it was easily collected by Lindahl. Minutes later Stanway decides to let one rip from 30 yards out, but it has just a smidgen too much power on it as it sails just inches over the bar.

With the momentum on their sides it should have been a simple stroll to half time for England, but since when do we ever do things the easy way. Earps tested the home fans nerves 5 minutes before the end of the half as she chose to play a short ball to Millie Bright in the box with two Swedish players closing in. Bright was able to sort her feet out in time to lump the ball clear, but taking that of risk when you’re only 1-0 up is far too nerve-shredding for my liking.

Sweden were able to create one more gilt-edged chance before half-time, but when Rolfo heading a cross from the back post back into the danger area there was no-one in yellow there to tap it home and England were able to make it to the break with their 1-0 lead intact. Mead once again proving herself to be indispensable to England’s hopes in the tournament.

England may have been leading 1-0 at half-time but throughout the first half Sweden had shown that they could provide a credible threat to the England goal and had come close to getting on the scoresheet themselves on multiple occasions. The only thing preventing Sweden from getting control of this game in the first 45 was the same thing that had seen them pushed so close to extra-time and penalties in their quarter-final. A severe lack of cutting edge and attacking composure in the crucial moments in the final third.

Sweden got the second half underway and were on the back foot almost immediately. It took England just 2 minutes from the restart to double their lead. An inch perfect ball round the corner from Kirby was sent across the box from Hemp only to be turned behind for a corner by the frazzled Swedes. The corner allowed Mead to pay Bronze back for the assist provided for the first goal by providing the assist that gave the defender a goal of her own. Mead floated the ball to the back post where Bronze met it with a thumping header back across goal. The ball nestled in the back of the net and after a torturously long VAR check it was confirmed that England had their two-goal cushion.

This second goal for the hosts broke the will of the Swedes to resist any further as the damage had been done and they sunk into the mental abyss that can follow your dreams being crushed. Despite the desperate attempts of Peter Gerhardsson, Sweden’s manager, to reignite his teams hopes with 3 changes in 5 minutes. He took of Filippa Angeldal, Sofia Jakobsson and Amanda Ilestedt, replacing them with Caroline Seger, Johanna Rytting Kaneryd and Jonna Andersson but this had little effect on the tide of attacks that England were now throwing their way.

England had to make a substitution of their own before they got their third of the match though because the scorer of that third goal was the irrepressible and inspirational super-sub that is Alessia Russo. She entered the fray in place of Ellen White in the 57th minute and when I clocked that it was Russo coming on I turned to my left and asked “how long till she’s on the scoresheet then?”.

It took her a full 11 minutes to add her name to the goalscorer’s roll, but she was already terrorising the Swedish defence from her first touch of the ball within a minute of coming on. Russo broke into the area down the right and laid a delicious ball across the 6 yard box that Hemp just had to get a toe on to tap it home, but Hemp connected a little too well with the cross and could only watch on in disbelief as her effort went out for a goal kick after smashing off the bar.

Russo got her goal in the 68th minute and it was well worth the wait. The ball was played into her from the left channel as Kirby’s brilliant run was picked out by Keira Walsh. When the ball was fizzed across to Russo her first shot ricocheted off Lindahl, but Russo was not done. She collected the ball on the edge of the 6yard and then with a defender in close attendance, another defender and the keeper between her and the goal and whilst standing with her back to the goal she pulled an exquisite piece of skill out of the top draw. She backheeled the ball past both defenders and through the keeper’s legs.

Russo had been on the pitch just over 10 minutes before unleashing a gorgeous bit of skill to banish any last concerns of a Swedish comeback. Her finish was beautiful, exquisite, inspiring and so much more besides. It is the goal that will live longest in the memory of everyone watching this tournament because it was just so insanely cheeky and downright brilliant. There has been a lot of talk around this tournament about inspiring the next generation of players and now the youngsters in the game across the country have a beautiful piece of skill to attempt to emulate. There will be kids up and down the country trying to copy Russo’s goal in the their back gardens this week and it’s moments like that which can inspire that next generation of superstars to pursue a career in football.

England were not done scoring just yet though as Kirby added a 4th goal for the hosts as the game entered it’s final 15 minutes. Having spotted Lindahl off her line she went for an audacious chip from 30 yards out and it went in. Lindahl got her palms to it but couldn’t stop the ball from squirming out the top of her grasp and despite her best efforts she couldn’t recover in time to prevent the ball crossing the line. None of the Swedish team will want to watch this match back, but after gifting England their 4th goal in such a fashion Lindahl will have even more reason to avoid watching the highlights in future.

Kirby’s reward for getting on the scoresheet was to be hooked from the action almost immediately, with Ella Toone sent on to see out the match. Just before that goal Sweden made their final 2 substitutions of the match as Hanna Bennison and Lina Hurtig were sent on to replace Stina Blackstenius and Linda Sembrant. England would also complete their quota of 5 substitutions for the match in the dying minutes with a triple change. Chloe Kelly, Jill Scott and Alex Greenwood were given a run-out to join in the party as Rachel Daly, Georgia Stanway and player of the match, Beth Mead were given a well-deserved rest. Hemp was the only one of the front 5 that started the match to see out the full 90 minutes.

Toone almost added a 5th for England in the final 10 minutes as she took a pot-shot from the edge of the box that looked to be flying harmlessly wide, until Nathalie Bjorn flung a leg at it and the deflection saw the ball skim the bar on it’s way behind. That would have been a lovely metaphor for the match, England pressure forcing the Sweden defence to buckle and self-destruct, but unfortunately it was not to be.

England saw out the rest of the final 10 and the 3 added on in complete cruise control. This led to a fair bit of pressure from the Swedes but nothing that ever looked like genuinely troubling Earps and in the final minute of the 90 it was England that came inches away from increasing their margin of victory. Hemp played a lovely cross through the box from the right side and Russo connected with it but couldn’t quite get enough on it to turn it in at the far post. It skimmed the paint off the post on it’s way behind.

England had to make do with just a 4-0 win over the team ranked 2nd in the world and on the strength of their second half performance they can be slightly disappointed to have only scored 4. The celebrations at the final whistle were incredible, with not a soul leaving for at least 10 minutes and when I left after half an hour there were still thousands of fans sticking around to soak up this glorious feeling.

Football really is coming home this time. The Men’s side came so close to bringing it home last year until Italy ruined their Wembley party, but no matter whether the Women are facing France or Germany in the final there is no chance of them facing the same heartbreak. England will have their first trophy since 1966 in just a few days time and tonight we find out who they will be defeating in the final.

Neither option is particularly appetising. France brushed Italy aside in the group stages with one of the most complete team performances across a full 90 minutes that I have seen from any team in a long time. Whilst Germany for their part are living up to their national reputation of ruthless efficiency at major tournaments. The Germans are not only the runaway record holders for Women’s Euro titles, winning 8 out of the 12 tournaments to date, but they have amassed that record despite missing the first 2 editions.

England will have the partisan home crowd willing them on though and with the strength in depth that the team possesses this will be enough to power them to the title.

IT’S COMING HOME!!!!