Jonathan Liew's Blog, page 2

Spain seek to erase pain of World Cup final fallout with Euro 2025 glory | Jonathan Liew

After traumatic fallout from their 2023 triumph, Montse Tomé’s team are fighting for more than just a trophy

For England, the last World Cup final remains a kind of open wound. The mistake by Lucy Bronze that allowed Olga Carmona to score the only goal of the game; Lauren Hemp hitting the crossbar; the opportunities not taken; the surges of momentum not rewarded; the sense of a golden inheritance slipping inexorably through their fingers. For the players who remain, and for coach Sarina Wiegman, Sunday’s European Championship final offers a chance for redemption.

If all this is normal and regular enough, then what is perhaps more unusual is that much of the above is also true for their victorious opponents.

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Euro 2025 final buildup, latest transfer updates and more: football news – as it happened

The England midfielder Ella Toone previewed Sunday’s match against Spain while Sarina Wiegman delivered some concerning injury news about Lauren James

Keira Walsh has said she hopes Spain’s players are able to “just enjoy the game of football” when they face England in the Euro 2025 final on Sunday after their World Cup final victory two years ago was overshadowed by Luis Rubiales’s actions afterwards.

Reflecting on England’s 2023 World Cup final defeat to Spain, Keira Walsh said: “Obviously it was a massive disappointment. From a collective we probably feel like we didn’t have our best performance that day. But as a football player you can become too emotional and if you pull too much on that then you can be too emotional. This is a new game, new team, we know what we bring in this tournament so we’re going to keep doing that and focus on the positives, not try and draw on that too much.

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Euro 2025 final buildup, latest transfer updates and more: football news – live

Keep up with all the latest football news as it happens

Euros top scorers | Player guide | And email David

Keira Walsh has said she hopes Spain’s players are able to “just enjoy the game of football” when they face England in the Euro 2025 final on Sunday after their World Cup final victory two years ago was overshadowed by Luis Rubiales’s actions afterwards.

Reflecting on England’s 2023 World Cup final defeat to Spain, Keira Walsh said: “Obviously it was a massive disappointment. From a collective we probably feel like we didn’t have our best performance that day. But as a football player you can become too emotional and if you pull too much on that then you can be too emotional. This is a new game, new team, we know what we bring in this tournament so we’re going to keep doing that and focus on the positives, not try and draw on that too much.

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England’s unashamed icon: Chloe Kelly renews starring role at Euro 2025

Effortless content generator’s rare gift for catching the eye has been key to the Lionesses’ run to latest major final

It was Chloe Kelly’s wedding anniversary on Thursday. We know this because she posted about it to her 1 million Instagram followers, because everyone saw her personalised shin pad adorned with her wedding photo, and because she joked last week that she still hadn’t got her husband, Scott, a card.

But then Kelly has always had a rare gift for catching the eye. Her shirt-waving celebration at Wembley remains the defining image of the Euro 2022 triumph. Her trademark headband renders her instantly recognisable in a squad full of above-average-height blond women. Her hop-skip penalty run-up is unique. In a profession where many are naturally wary of being seen to court attention, Kelly is luxuriantly comfortable with being the focus of your gaze. As her teammate Esme Morgan puts it: “She just doesn’t really care what people think.”

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Brilliant Bonmatí sends Spain into Euro 2025 final, plus transfer talk – Football Weekly Extra

Max Rushden is joined by Jonathan Liew, Nedum Onuoha and Seb Hutchinson to discuss Euro 2025 and the latest transfer news

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On the podcast today: it took a moment of Aitana Bonmatí brilliance for Spain to overcome Germany in extra-time and reach the Euro 2025 final. The pre-tournament favourites are now one game away from glory but what can England do to stop them and retain their trophy?

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Aside from a sense of manifest destiny, what exactly is Wiegman-ball? | Jonathan Liew

Just days before the final, we still do not know what is getting England through the big moments at Euro 2025

“This is a movie,” Sarina Wiegman said, and as England celebrated their heist in Geneva that sense of unreality seemed to have infused her players too. “Goodness me,” sighed Esme Morgan as she returned to the dressing room after the 2-1 extra-time win over Italy, blowing out her cheeks in relief. Meanwhile, the captain, Leah Williamson, was trying to explain just how England manage to keep going behind but pulling out victories at the very end.

“Whilst there are seconds on the clock, there are seconds that we’re just waiting,” she said. “It’s less ‘if’ and more ‘how’. I don’t know how to explain it, I don’t know how we do it.”

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Lionesses stumble into final through blind luck but Agyemang offers glimpse of future | Jonathan Liew

This generation of great England footballers has had its time with Wiegman’s staunch loyalty to the class of 2022 exposing limitations

Hannah Hampton is up for the corner. It’s the fourth minute of injury time in the Euro 2025 semi-final. Every England player bar Chloe Kelly is within 20 yards of Italy’s goal. And as blisteringly underwhelming as England have been all night, this is still a team with an unerring sense of their own narrative, a belief in themselves, a taste for the dramatic climax.

The noise builds to a roar. The roar builds to a scream. Kelly puts her corner straight into the side netting. Hampton hangs her head and gallops back into more familiar territory. End of the road. England are done.

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The rise of Alessia Russo: a tale of talent, training and a moment seized

The England striker is finally grabbing the limelight, but her route to stardom began long before she became a Lioness…

Above all, she remembers the beach. She would wake every morning to a view of the sea, spend her days splashing in the surf, playing football on the sand with her brothers. They would talk into the night, eating and drinking, the waves crashing below them. These are her earliest and most treasured memories: Nettuno, the coastal town an hour south of Rome, where her nonna still lives and which Alessia Russo still describes as her favourite place in the world.

The story goes – and so fondly is it recounted in the Russo family that it has long since passed into lore – that one day Alfonso was up from Sicily, visiting Rome with a friend, when he saw a girl stepping on to a train at the railway station. No, not just a girl. The girl. Two fairly major issues: he didn’t know her, and it wasn’t his train. But Alfonso was a true romantic, the train was about to leave the station, and above all he knew that some moments in life just need to be seized.

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Euros continue to serve up goal fest as playing styles collide to dazzling effect | Jonathan Liew

With three matches to go, the tournament in Switzerland is clear of the 2022 edition in goals per game, but what’s behind all the extra scoring?

And frankly, have you not been entertained? If, of course, we are willing to stretch our definition of “entertainment” to include some of the other popular sensations. Suspense. Terror. Existential despair. Cold sweating. Temporary breakdown of the nervous system. Loud screaming at inanimate items of electrical equipment.

But as we approach the final week of this operatic Women’s European Championship, this tournament has a fair claim to be one of the most thrilling in recent memory. And not just on the more intangible metrics: noise, penalty drama, side-eye, flying saves, players singing unprompted into pitch-side microphones, quality of fan walks. With three matches remaining, Euro 2025 has surpassed Euro 2022 in terms of goals, averaging a staggering half a goal more (3.57 against 3.06).

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Ann-Katrin Berger follows up biblical miracle with penalty heroics for Germany | Jonathan Liew

The astonishing save to prevent an own goal against France is the prelude to the match-winning shootout show from a two-time cancer survivor

Ann-Katrin Berger is flying. The ball is flying. A few yards away, near the penalty spot, Clara Mateo of France already has her arms raised in celebration. A heroic German defensive rearguard is about to end in a misdirected defensive header, a looping own goal and a heartbreaking defeat. But a 34-year-old double cancer survivor, largely written off by her own country’s media before this quarter-final, has other ideas.

The mechanics of the save itself are easy enough to explain. Berger is about five yards out of her goal, and so has to back-pedal furiously while also keeping her eye on the flight. At the last moment, it looks like the ball is about to beat her. Which is the point at which Berger flings herself backwards and upwards, finding every last gram of strength, straining every last muscle, the sort of moment you spend a lifetime training for. She claws it away with her fingers. Falls heavily on her shoulders. Accepts the congratulations of her teammates, who look like they have just seen a biblical miracle.

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