Arrogant is a dirty word, but there’s no better way to describe that second half performance. England crushed the highest ranked team in the tournament to reach the final of Euro 2022. What a night.
Followers of the England women’s team have been carried by a wave of excitement and anticipation in the last few weeks, familiar to those obsessing over the England men in major tournaments. Any doubts or talk of stumbling blocks has been met with fingers in ears and drowned out by the ring of Three Lions that permeates our souls through summers of football.
The eight goals against Norway, five more against Northern Ireland, Georgia Stanway’s screamer to see us through a nerve-jangling quarter-final. It’s all led us to this wonderful, typically insular point where it’s inconceivable to think that football won’t be coming home. It’s what being an England fan is all about.
But Sarina Wiegman’s side faced two significant hurdles on Tuesday: firstly, a semi-final hoodoo which has seen them knocked out at this stage in their last three major tournaments; secondly, the challenge of Sweden, the highest ranked team in the tournament, who were a penalty kick away from winning the Olympics last year, whom England have beaten just once (in 1984) in seven competitive meetings.
We needn’t have worried. We’ve got Beth Mead’s laces. We’ve got Lucy Bronze’s head. We’ve got Alessia Russo’s heel.
Mead, like pretty much all of her teammates, had actually been pretty poor for the first half hour at Bramall Lane. Starved of any real chance to run at the Sweden defence she was the cause of a fair few broken moves for England. But if we’ve learned anything about Mead in this tournament, and the 18 months before, the girl can finish.
It was a perfect first touch before an arrowed shot into the far corner, but it was also a brilliant bit of movement. Having seen Lauren Hemp’s cross fizz across the six-yard box in front of her, she pulled away from the Sweden back four and found space in which Lucy Bronze was able to pick her out in the second phase.
It was Mead’s sixth goal of the tournament. She needs one more to beat the European Championships record Inka Grings set in 2009.
We were a bit worried though. Before England took the lead Sweden were the better team. Mary Earps was forced into a fine save after just 20 seconds as Sofia Jakobsson was sent through, Stina Blackstenius fluffed a golden chance soon after, before they hit the bar from…
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