Three summers ago, she provided an image for the ages, racing across the Wembley turf, twirling her shirt euphorically above her head in a moment of indelible beauty, and we thought there could be nothing so iconic again. We were wrong.
As the sun began to set across this stadium on Sunday night, Chloe Kelly stepped up to the penalty spot with a look of absolute certainty on her face. She span the football through her hands fully five times, waiting until she was entirely satisfied that it had settled on to a place where she would strike it. Then, she adjusted the ponytail in which she holds her golden hair. And then, she stepped up to dispatch the penalty kick which retained the European Championship title for England. She ran to the corner flag, just as she did after the strike from spot with which she had rescued England in a quarter final barely a week ago.
She, the 27-year-old shining light of this England team, had not even started the match. Has there been a better, more consistently willing and influential substitute in England women’s or men’s tournament squads over time than this player? Almost certainly not..
The tournament’s budget closing ceremony with its polystyrene ‘clappers’, basic pyrotechnics and people in silver suits playing the national anthems on electric strings, cello and violin, didn’t point to this being a seminal moment in women’ football history, though from the very start England looked ready to seize it and turn it into one.
The first hints came early on, in their direct football: balls out of their own half asking Lauren Hemp to drive down the Spain right and find Alessia Russo, whose low effort was parried away into the path of Lauren James, who lost her footing. Here was the kind of quality which we had barely seen from England in this past month.
There was a first half gift, too. Goalkeeper Cati Coll playing a weak pass out across the back which Hemp seized on to drive towards goal and despatch a shot from close range that Coll, redeeming herself, managed to block.
England are European champions again after beating Spain on penalties on Sunday evening
Chloe Kelly netted the winning spot kick as she stepped up to take England’s fifth penalty
Kelly wheeled away in celebration having also scored the winner in the semi-final victory
We knew that they would require defensive excellence to keep out team with most goals, possession and average chances created per game in this tournament but England erred in that department to give Spain a lead – so worried about an overload on the right that they left a big space on he left side of the box for Mariona Caldentey to attack and get away from her marker, Lucy Bronze, to score.
Spain put that move together because James, a player who was clearly unfit and should not have started this game, was asleep in the build-up, drifting semi-detached around the channel of danger that Spain attacked. Spain scored their goal because Bronze, who was left standing with her hands on her head, had lacked awareness, just as when allowing Italy to score in the semi-final.
You feared for England then, because when the momentum shift came, it was brutally hard for a group of players who found themselves stuck on that notorious Spanish passing carousel. It was a counterpressure so good that England were struggling for air, unable to get out, needing to fasten onto the ball simply to get a rest but not even managing that. They didn’t press the advancing Spanish, with a game plan which entailed deep and stating compact, rather than advancing to close down the centre backs as Spain advanced.
But Spain hadn’t accounted for what Sarina Wiegman’s players have been calling ‘proper England’ at this tournament. It was a more aggressive England side which emerged for the second half – a team unwilling to be strangled into submission – and Kelly, who had replaced James in the first half’s closing stages was the driving force from the start, floating an exquisite cross which Russo rose to meet and equalise.
One of the footballing developments of this tournament has been a quality of crossing surpassing that of any other women’s international tournament and Kelly has provided more – 10 of them – than any substitute in a tournament since a record was first taken, in 2011
Then she was driving into the box, shifting the ball from her left foot to right and getting away a shot which Coll got fingertips to, to push it wide.
England were defending their box well, too. There were monumental performances here from Jess Carter, restored to the side at the end of a tournament which has challenged her in so many ways, and Leah Williamson. Lucy Bronze, too, with her immense physicality. Another huge performance from her. Time stood still as substitute Claudia Pina ran into left hand of England’s box and shot, but Hannah Hampton hurled herself into an instinctive save, parrying the ball away.
When Wiegman sent on Michelle Agyemang on 70 minutes, there was a target and physical presence for Kelly’s delivery, too. The moment Agyemang wrestled the ball out of Pina’s possession and, leaving the Spaniard on the turf, sent Hemp springing away with the ball, told its own story. Wiegman saw Hemp’s desire too. From the technical area, the Dutchman urged England’s players to find her and watch her go.
Hannah Hampton was also the hero for England, saving two of Spain’s four spot kicks
Hampton and Kelly were both mobbed as England were crowned champions once again
Sarina Wiegman and her side celebrated in front of fans as music played out in the stadium
Prince William and Princess Charlotte were among those in attendance for the game
Fans around the country celebrated as England were crowned champions of Europe again
Alessio Russo had squared things up for England with a fine header in the second half
Russo headed in from Chloe Kelly’s cross after keeping her place ahead of Michelle Agyemang
Spain took the lead after Mariona Caldentey (right) crept in ahead of Lucy Bronze to score
The two sides could not be separated after 120 minutes and England pulled through from the spot in Switzerland
The jeopardy was immense. A second’s hesitation was all it took for Aitana Bonmati to roll a ball behind England’s defence into the right channel for Batlle levelled a cross which substitute Salma Paralluelo – a clear and present danger – came treacherously close to poking in. This was contest between two world class sides, fighting it out to the last, no quarter given.
It took us to another shootout of unbearable tension.
When Beth Mead slipped as she took her first kick, Agyemang’s hands in the circle went up to her head, and the striker, forced to retake as it had been a double touch, missed, allowing Patri the kick which gave Spain first advantage.
England’s kicks were a vast improvement on the wretched shootout against the Swedes. Alex Greenwood’s was solid and Niamh Charles’ emphatic. It took a save to the highest order to parry Leah Williamson’s strike sent low and right of the keeper. But after Hampton’s two superb saves and Paralluelo’s wild strike wide of the right post, it all came down to Kelly, the player of this England era, for whom that starring role in that Wembley final was never going to be enough.
