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 its 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. Of course there had been the usual gripes about Italian gamesmanship, the eternity Laura Giuliani was taking over goal kicks, the constant injury breaks, the sudden random attacks of cramp. But the real timewasters here were not Italy but England, who on a shapeless and lawless night in Geneva conspired to waste a nation’s entire evening, before finally doing the thing they were paid to do.
