Two young goalscorers save England from elimination against Spain. However, UEFA chose a different player to be the player of the match.
Full of luck: goalscorer Georgia Stanway (left) celebrates with Lauren Hemp.
IMAGO/Sportimage
Paul Bartmuß reports from Brighton
When everyone screamed, she stayed calm. “Shoooot!” roared through the arena in Brighton while Georgia Stanway trudged towards the Spanish goal with big strides. Only then, clearly too late for the taste of many English fans, did she withdraw.
“Most people thought Georgia would fit now,” said one teammate Keira Walsh later, “but she only had the shot in her head”. and another Alex Greenwoodclaimed: “As soon as the ball left her foot, I knew it was going to go in the top corner.”
Tight, if not extremely placed, the ball hit diagonally over the goalkeeper Sandra Panos a. The fact that England escaped elimination in the quarter-finals of the European Championship (2-1 after extra time) had a lot to do with Stanway. Not just because of her goal.
An example is the scene after almost 15 minutes, when the 23-year-old future Bayern player conquered the ball with a tackle and a fraction of a second later sprinted forward. As in the opening game against Austria (1-0), Stanway moved anywhere between the sixth and tenth position against Spain.
Probably the best feeling of my footballing life.
With her dynamism, she embodied the will of the English team to somehow progress in front of a frenetic crowd of 28,994.
But she had to share the headlines with a colleague: Ella Toone. The joker, who many in England would like to see in the starting eleven instead of Ellen White, came off the bench as always in this tournament and scored for the first time: in the 84th minute she skillfully equalized. Afterwards, the 22-year-old sorted the moments of her still young career – and said about the moment immediately after the goal: “That was probably the best feeling I’ve had in my football life.”
Not to be neglected, however: there were problems with the top favorites and hosts. Neither the hitherto immensely accurate Beth Mead nor playmaker Fran Kirby found their way into the game, which was largely dominated by Spain.
Player of the match becomes a defender
“We didn’t have the ball very often but our mentality and resilience have been fantastic throughout,” said Millie Brightas she trudged through the stadium’s catacombs in her socks. UEFA had named the resolute centre-back Player of the Match. Without all their saves and their at least solid playmaking, the Lionesses could not have scored the equalizer in a controversial way.
But it so happened that the English fans, always ready for a shot of too much optimism, were allowed to sing their song in the 98th minute. With more than twenty minutes to play, Falmer Stadium in Brighton sang “Football’s coming home”.
Two victories are still missing until the first major title for an English national football team – since 1966. Whoever wins games like that on Wednesday evening has every right to hope.