Don’t let it be said that Chloe Kelly is all sweetness and light and self-effacement.
Manchester City marginalised her in a way that left her forcing a move to Arsenal last winter – finding a way back into the England squad who have now retained their European crown – and she makes no pretence of how sweet the vindication feels.
‘Thank you everyone that wrote me off,’ she said late on Sunday night, without a trace of emotion. Truly, a revenge served colder than cold.
But there was something quite sublime about 10 minutes or so in her company, in a room a few hundred yards from the place where she had just despatched her winning penalty.
Something that took you a very long way from the moody, miserable self-absorption we’ve witnessed in players from the men’s game, such as Marcus Rashford and Alejandro Garnacho, who carry a huge sense of victimhood around on their backs when things aren’t working out.
Garnacho strolls about provocatively in an Aston Villa shirt while Rashford drinks himself senseless in Belfast and posts cryptic images of himself playing cards on a private jet on the way to Barcelona.
Chloe Kelly can take you away from all the miserable self-absorption we see in the men’s game
Kelly has now sealed two Euros crowns for England after her winning penalty on Sunday night
Kelly can certainly teach those boys a thing or two about adversity. Recovering from an ACL injury before the last European Championship, on the bench from then until now, she is, and always has been, the shining light of this team: the English superstar of her generation.
In the words printed on a toiletries bag which, by way of motivation, Sarina Wiegman showed her players earlier this week: ‘B***es get s*** done.’ Male players often walk into stadiums with accessories like that under their arms but never has the accoutrement served such a purpose for them.
The mere way Kelly spoke on Sunday night told you something about her class and fundamental lack of pretension. The ‘thank you’ when you congratulated her.
The acknowledgement of your thanks to her for detail imparted in an answer to a question, in my case about the way she had spun the ball through her hands five times in the enormous moments before despatching the trophy-winning penalty kick.
This really was some remove from the po-faced observations which have become the new normal in so many men’s football media suites.
For countless players in football, the substitutes bench is a form of demotion – a reason to scowl – and Kelly certainly had cause to feel the prick of injustice, given a contribution in the clutch moments which transcends everyone else in this twice European Championship-winning team.
Her goal from the bench against the Germans in that Wembley final of three years ago demonstrated the ice-cold mindset. She made no connection with a ball which arrived at her feet yet a second swish of her boot connected, to send the ball home and her wheeling away, famously whirling her jersey above her head.
She should have been out on the turf from the start on Sunday, given Lauren James, the great English hope slated to start instead of her, was clearly injured. But from the minute Kelly materialised in a watery sunshine before the game, she radiated energy.
From the minute Kelly materialised in a watery sunshine before the game, she radiated energy
Kelly, 27, has always been the shining light of this team: the English superstar of her generation
The host camera crews intuited this and lingered on her animated contribution to the pre-match drills. Never was a substitute more ready than when James limped off before half-time. Never has an England substitute, for a women’s or men’s squad, been more influential down the years.
Making something of everything: that’s what Kelly does. Finding joy in a place where others don’t. Her family had got her through the ‘dark moments’ of last winter, she said on Sunday night. ‘And I’m so grateful to be out the back end.’
She hoped hers was ‘the story to tell someone experiencing something the same, that sometimes it doesn’t last.’ That ‘just round the corner’ there is something better.
A hugely optimistic and redemptive narrative like this – a beacon of hope in a deeply divided country which suddenly feels like a tinderbox once again – is one we need more badly than ever, isn’t it? Kelly, Jess Carter and Hannah Hampton were all doubted, yet all emerged as pillars of that winning team against Spain.
The squad as a whole have spent the tournament making it through in the face of the odds, before the ultimate demonstration on Sunday evening of what the players have all been calling ‘proper English’ football. Spain were suffocating them, leaving them figuratively gasping for air on the passing carousel. It was Kelly’s arrival which switched a light on.
She supplied the assist for Alessia Russo’s equaliser and then almost sent England ahead, but it seemed written in the firmament that the contest would run to the very last and that she would be the one taking up the ball and setting it down for the kick which would seal the championship for England.
How typically Kelly that she dispenses with the Panenka and associated cool-as-school variations of the spot kick which seem to say, ‘Look at me. See how clever I am.’ For her there is the eccentric hop and run, akin to a horse approaching a fence, which, she revealed to us in that room on Sunday night, has no particular science behind it.
‘It started with Everton quite a few years ago,’ she said, of the club for whom she left her native London as an 18-year-old, in search of more starts than Arsenal were offering. ‘It’s something that works for me and I can’t explain it too much. I take my time. I take my breath and I’m confident in that. Sometimes you miss. Sometimes you score. Taking a penalty normally would probably feel a bit weird to me.’
Kelly’s trademark hop during her penalty run-up – which she admits has zero science behind it
This iconic image of Kelly after she scored the winner in the Euro 2022 final against Germany
Kelly was desperate to point to the guidance and importance of England boss Sarina Wiegman
There is also that idiosyncratic back-spinning of the ball routine of hers, which on Sunday seemed to render her oblivious to the enormity of the moment.
‘It’s just me making sure I’m ready,’ she said. ‘Not letting anyone take me off my routine. I spin the ball until I feel like it’s right. If that’s 10 times, I’d make sure it’s 10 times. It’s when I feel it’s the perfect one. So I think it’s part of my routine. I try to stick to that routine as much as possible and believe in myself in those moments.’
There was no whirling of her shirt this time yet the achievement seemed greater, because the opposition was finer and the final more titanic than the Wembley occasion of July 2022.
In the aftermath, Kelly was one of the organisers of an impromptu celebration in which Michelle Agyemang, England’s breakout star, danced through a channel of players. Then Wiegman sought her out. Theirs was the embrace that seemed to mean the most. In those 10 minutes of talk on Sunday, it was Wiegman, not herself, who Kelly wanted to talk about.
‘What she’s done for me individually… she gave me hope when I probably didn’t have any,’ the 27-year-old said. ‘She gave me an opportunity to represent my country again.’
The joy on her face was what struck you most. It was quite something to behold – an object lesson in the rewards of modesty and honest endeavour for those who strut their stuff and parade their colossal egos through football.
