England beat Germany 2-1 within the last of the European Championship after additional time on Sunday to win its first main girls’s soccer title.
Chloe Kelly scored the successful objective on a rebound within the second half of additional time after Germany didn’t clear a nook. The sport had completed 1-1 after 90 minutes at Wembley Stadium with Lina Magull for Germany canceling out Ella Toone’s objective for England.
After the ultimate whistle, the England gamers danced and the group sang their anthem “Candy Caroline.” The nice-natured ambiance contained in the stadium Sunday drew contrasts with the violent scenes when the England males’s crew misplaced its European Championship last to Italy on the identical stadium a yr in the past.
The tournament-record crowd of greater than 87,000 underlined the expansion of ladies’s soccer in Europe because the final time England and Germany performed for a continental title 13 years in the past.
On that event, Germany surged to a 6-2 win over an England crew which nonetheless relied on part-time gamers. Two years later, England launched its Ladies’s Tremendous League, which has professionalized the sport and grown into one of many major competitions worldwide.
That has meant rising competitors for Germany, which was a pioneering nation in European girls’s soccer and more and more faces well-funded rivals in England, Spain and France.
Ella Toone latched onto an extended cross from Keira Walsh to get in behind the German protection within the 62nd minute and cleverly despatched a lobbed shot over goalkeeper Merle Frohms and into the online for the opening objective.
Toone’s objective, six minutes after she entered the sport from the bench, sparked celebrations as England supervisor Sarina Wiegman – the successful coach with the Netherlands in 2017 – raised each arms in pleasure.
Going through its first defeat in 9 European finals, Germany got here shut when Lea Schüller hit the put up after which leveled the rating within the 79th when Lina Magull knocked a low cross previous England goalkeeper Mary Earps, taking the sport to additional time.
When the sport went to additional time there have been echoes of one other European Championship last on the identical venue the yr earlier than, when the England males’s crew had a 1-0 lead however misplaced on penalties to Italy.
Germany was with out captain Alexandra Popp – the crew’s main scorer with six objectives – after she reported a muscle downside within the warmup. She was changed within the lineup by Schüller whereas Svenja Huth took over as captain.
